In just over two months, nearly every existing site remediation case pending before the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) will become subject to the 2009 Site Remediation Reform Act, N.J.S.A. 58:10C-1 et seq. The regulated community and NJDEP have been gearing up for this pivotal date since the 2009 reform legislation, which was the culmination of years of political and agency strategy, stakeholder meetings and white papers. All of these efforts have paved the way for the development of New Jersey’s version of a semi-privatized site remediation program, relying on private consultants to oversee the cleanups languishing in a massive NJDEP administrative backlog. The reform act also establishes strict remediation timeframes and solidifies affirmative obligations for cleanups in response to a growing political concern that NJDEP was failing to adequately protect the environment.
In the three years since the reform act was passed, private consultants temporarily licensed under the law as “licensed site remediation professionals” (LSRP) have been both performing and signing off on new cleanups initiated after the reform act was enacted and older cleanups where the remediating party opted in to the LSRP program. During this interim period, NJDEP has been in so-called compliance assistance mode and, for the lion’s share of cases, has been allowing responsible parties to move forward at a much slower pace without threats of penalty.
