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About Water Monitoring & Standards

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The Administrator’s Office oversees all activities of the program, including coordination of policy development, information dissemination and outreach. The Office sets and monitors progress towards various goals which assist the program in achieving its mission.

General monitoring and assessment-related activities and publications are managed by this Office, including:

• NJ's Long Term Water Monitoring and Assessment Strategy
• Catalogues of NJ’s water monitoring networks
• Water monitoring fact sheets

Coordination with other external water monitoring programs is also a responsibility of the Administrator’s Office. As such, the Office oversees the activities of the New Jersey Water Monitoring Coordinating Council. The Office also oversees implementation of NJ's Water Quality Data Exchange System.

Specific monitoring, standards and TMDL development, and water quality assessment functions, within WM&S, are covered by 4 bureaus:

• Bureau of Fresh Water and Biological Monitoring

The Bureau is responsible for monitoring the ambient conditions of the state's fresh and ground water resources. This monitoring includes regular sampling through a statewide network consisting of 115 surface water monitoring stations, 760 benthic macroinvertebrate biological stream monitoring stations, 100 fish assemblage biological stream monitoring stations, and 150 ground water stations. In addition, the bureau operates the the department's biological biomonitoring laboratory where bioassay and macroinvertebrate, fish and algal studies are regularly conducted. The bureau is also responsible for implementing the state's Ambient Lakes Monitoring Program. 

• Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring

The Bureau, located in Leeds Point, Atlantic County, is responsible for water quality monitoring used to classify approximately 700,000 acres of marine and estuarine shellfish waters, In this regard, approximately 15,000 ambient water samples are collected yearly from a 4,000 station sampling network. All of these samples are analyzed at the Bureau's southern regional DEP laboratory. Additionally, this bureau reviews CAFRA, waterfront development and dredging applications, administers the Special Shellfish Resource Recovery Program, and participates in a wide variety of sampling projects throughout the state's estuarine and coastal waters. One such project is the Marine/Estuarine monitoring network which monitors key chemical parameters from 200 stations. In addition, the bureau oversees both the Beach Monitoring and the Clean Shores programs.  

• Bureau of Water Quality Standards and Assessment

The Bureau is responsible for development of surface and ground water quality standards as well as water quality characterization and assessment, including preparation of New Jersey’s Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report (305(b) and 303(d)). The bureau also oversees the state's Local and Volunteer Monitoring Program.

 

• Bureau of Environmental Analysis and Restoration

The Bureau is responsible for determining the sources/causes of water quality impairments and identify the management responses needed to address the impairments through TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Load) and Watershed Restoration Plans (WRP).  The Bureau also operates the AmeriCorps New Jersey Watershed Ambassadors Program (AmeriCorps NJWAP).  

 

For additional information, please contact Jill Lipoti, Director