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DEP Issues Warning to
New Jersey's Businesses and Water Suppliers:
Water Allocation Permits Will Be Strictly Enforced
New DEP Communications
Effort Launched with Regulated Community
(03/44) TRENTON -- To help reduce
the frequency and severity of drought emergencies in New
Jersey's future, Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP) Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell today issued the
first in a series of enforcement alerts to all regulated
water users, warning them of increased DEP inspections and
strict enforcement of water allocation permits.
"We can no longer address drought
emergencies on a crisis-to-crisis basis, but must proactively
conserve and protect our water supplies for the future,"
said DEP Commissioner Campbell. "This alert was issued
to warn the regulated community of stepped up inspections
and enforcement, providing them advance notice to improve
compliance with water supply laws and possibly eliminate
our need to take corrective action."
Groups targeted by this enforcement alert
include those holding water allocation permits authorizing
the use of ground and surface water for public drinking
water supplies, industrial processing and cooling, golf
courses, irrigation, sand and gravel operations, remediation
activities, and power generation. The alert includes a basic
listing of permit requirements to help determine a facility's
overall compliance. There are approximately 750 water allocation
permit holders in New Jersey.
In addition to increased inspections, the
DEP will issue Notices of Violation (NOV) to all entities
that fail to submit quarterly monitoring reports or exceed
their water withdrawal limits. The NOVs will be triggered
from information retrieved through a DEP-automated database
system that can be used to track non-compliance activities
by regulated water users.
The enforcement alert issued today is the
first released under a new, comprehensive advisory system
created by the DEP's Compliance and Enforcement Program
to improve outreach to the regulated community. This new
compliance advisory system includes: Enforcement Alerts,
which highlight areas of increased non-compliance that call
for stepped up enforcement; Compliance Warnings, which highlight
areas of concern; and Compliance Updates, which emphasize
incentive programs and tools to aid or improve regulatory
compliance.
In addition to issuing these advisories
directly to the regulated community where possible, the
DEP will post the advisories on a newly improved compliance
and enforcement web link from the DEP's homepage: www.state.nj.us/dep/enforcement,
which will be launched in April 2003. Training and on-site
compliance assistance, sample inspection checklists and
clear instructions to help facilities determine which checklists
apply to their operations will also be available on the
improved enforcement web link this summer. As part of the
DEP's outreach efforts with the regulated community, an
enforcement listserv, which will deliver all newly generated
advisories to interested parties by email, is also being
developed and will be available through the new web link.
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