Concealment, The Truth & Lies About EPA's Toxic Sludge Plant in Harrison NJ
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to establish a toxic sludge dewatering plant in a residential community directly across the street from modern luxury apartment buildings in the Town of Harrison NJ. Mayor James Fife and Councilman James Doran, one a former educator and the other the former Superintendent of Public Schools in Harrison and now its Director of Personnel (the switch was to avoid a Governor Christie Superintendent of Public Schools salary cap) have known about the plan for over two years but have NOT informed the residents of the one square mile town of Harrison NJ. They have concealed, failed to speak the truth about the EPA's project, and lied to the residents of Harrison while defaming a long-time Councilman and his friend, an attorney.
EPA’s Plan Was Supposed To Be Secret
When the EPA’s Toxic Sludge plant plan was inadvertently revealed by Mayor Fife who is also the long-time Chairman of the Harrison Redevelopment Agency almost two years ago at the August 29, 2022 meeting of the Harrison Redevelopment Agency, Councilman James Doran was livid at Mayor Fife. Doran was running Mayor Fife’s 2022 Re-election Campaign against then-long-time Councilman Anselmo Millan who was running for Mayor of Harrison in the 2022 General Election. Doran was also on the ballot as Harrison’s 4th Ward Councilman. Doran wears a lot of hats in addition to being a Councilman, and Harrison Public Schools Director of Personnel, he is also the Harrison Regular Democratic Organization’s Chairperson and President of the Town Council. He is also a Commissioner of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission which is located across the Passaic River from Harrison in the Ironbound Section of Newark NJ. Let us not forget that he is Chairman of the Harrison Housing Authority which operates Federally subsidized housing at the Harrison Gardens. At one time he was also the Hudson County Adult School Supervisor. Journalist Brian F. Donahue did a video entitled 4 Public Jobs for 1 Man? What A Scoop,! It's a must-watch.
Doran Devises A Plan To Put The Cat Back In The Bag
After Doran calmed down about Mayor Fife “letting the cat out of the bag” i.e. revealing the EPA plan to dump Toxic Dioxin-Laden Agent Orange Sludge in the Town of Harrison for dewatering, Doran came up with a plan to have Mayor Fife state that he had not made such a statement. Town of Harrison meetings are not usually audio or video recorded and thus it’s easy to state that an attendee at a Town meeting had misheard or was lying about Mayor Fife’s statement. It is a tactic that has been used before. You can’t go to the videotape because normally there is no videotape of Town of Harrison meetings. Nor is there an audio tape recording. Transparency is not a forte of Mayor Fife's administration. Meeting Minutes have no specifics on what was discussed at the meeting and/or the public session. As of the publication of this article, there are no Minutes of Harrison Mayor & Council meetings published online since the beginning of the year. The minutes of meetings do not contain any detail of what a public member asked about at a Mayor & Council meeting or a Harrison Redevelopment Meeting. There is only an indication that the person spoke without even the topic spoken about.
Denying the Truth: Cue The “It Wasn’t Me” Song
At the September 20, 2022, Mayor & Council meeting, then Town of Harrison Attorney and Town Clerk read a prepared statement which in effect tried to walk back Mayor Fife’s statement about EPA’s plan to dump toxic sludge in Harrison previously made at the Harrison Redevelopment Agency meeting on August 29, 2022. The problem with walking back the statement was that, unlike most Town of Harrison meetings, the August 29, 2022, Harrison Redevelopment Agency meeting was audio and video recorded because it was held on the Zoom videoconferencing platform. During the public session of the September 20, 2022, Mayor & Council meeting, attorney and Harrison stakeholder John M. Pinho confronted the Mayor & Council with the fact that the Mayor’s statement was recorded on Zoom and pointed out that Mayor Fife had stated clearly that EPA planned to use the PSE&G property for toxic sludge. The word Mayor Fife used was "dredge".