Quality Assurance Program
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP or "Department") administers environmental programs and requires adherence with state and federal regulations that require environmental data to be of documented quality. In order to comply with these regulations, the Department implements a quality management plan. This Quality Management Plan (QMP) documents our Department's quality system and describes our quality policies and procedures, roles, responsibilities, and authorities. The QMP was written to conform to the requirements outlined in the USEPA document, "EPA Requirements For Quality Management Plans", EPA QA/R-2, March 2001. The USEPA requires that states receiving federal grants have a QMP with quality assurance work outputs as promulgated in Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations Parts 31 and 35. The Code of Federal Regulations lists both general and specific requirements for a state's environmental program and acceptable quality assurance (QA) for federally funded programs. The Department, recognizing the importance of quality assurance, has adopted the QA requirements given in the Code of Federal Regulations and has applied them to all of its environmental programs. The Department has the responsibility to ensure that environmental data is generated, compiled, and reviewed under specific quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures to ensure that it is suitable for its intended use. The Department also requires quality assurance work outputs for its state programs.

The Department is required by USEPA Region II to develop and maintain its QA Program, and to prepare a Department Quality Management Plan (QMP or plan) that defines the Department's mission and planned QA work-outputs for the forthcoming fiscal years. The NJDEP's QA Program includes documentation of management's environmental principles and objectives, organizational responsibilities, and policies and procedures for the generation, compilation, review, and use of data of documented quality. The USEPA Region II has responsibility for overseeing Departmental QA activities associated with those programs over which USEPA has jurisdiction. The goal of this plan is to maintain a quality system to implement the Department’s QA policies. The QMP may also be viewed as the framework document under which individual projects are conducted.