Attorneys are often confronted by clients complaining of contaminated bays and rivers, hazardous waste spills or improper maintenance of landfills, or objecting to various forms of development. On many occasions, those who wish redress are personally unaffected in the sense they do not suffer the special harm or possess the particularized property interest required for standing under the common law or the Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1,-4, and which third-party objectors must possess for an adjudicatory hearing under the Administrative Procedure Act, N.J.S.A. 52:14B-1,-3.2.

The Environmental Rights Act (ERA), N.J.S.A. 2A:35A-1 et seq., constitutes New Jersey’s invitation to all persons to maintain actions to enforce or restrain the violation of environmental statutes and ordinances, with the right to recover counsel and expert fees should they prevail, when the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) or other jurisdictional political subdivision is either unwilling or unable to do so, or if its “effort…proves insufficient.” Superior Air Products v. N.L. Indus., 216 N.J. Super. 46 (App. Div. 1987). Indeed, the principles underlying the ERA are so strong that “[n]o one—not even those who have not cooperated with the DEP…—should be precluded from asserting the public’s rights ….” Allied Corp. v. Frola, 730 F. Supp. 626, 636 (D.N.J. 1990), abrogated on other grounds, Apgar v. Lederle Labs, 123 N.J. 450 (1991).

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