Environmental contamination, especially groundwater contamination, does not respect property boundaries that tends to complicate the investigation and remediation process. That situation has resulted in environmental and real estate attorneys having to seek access to the property not owned by their clients.

In 1993, the Legislature adopted the Brownfield and Contaminated Site Remediation Act that revised the hazardous discharge remediation statutes and addressed the possibility that some landowners would be unwilling to voluntarily consent to access to their property for environmental sampling or installing monitoring wells. It provided that if good-faith efforts to obtain access were unsuccessful, the remediating party could apply to the Superior Court for an order “directing the property owner to grant reasonable access to the property.” N.J.S.A. 58:10B-16(a)(1).