Water pollution control law in New Jersey
New Jersey Water Pollution Control Law consists of legislative and regulatory measures intended to limit the amount of harmful substances found in the state's lakes, rivers, and groundwater.
Prior to the mid 20th century, a common law notion of water pollution control was the guiding principle in New Jersey, as in the rest of the United States.
[2] However, it was not generally understood that discharging waste outside of the local drinking water supply could have detrimental effects on the entire river and the public health for cities downstream.
[3] In the second half of the 19th century, population density and the frequency of disease outbreaks had increased to the point that legislators and public saw the need to regulate the use of rivers as waste receptacles.
Thus, New Jersey enacted several laws that protected certain stretches of rivers, or even entire watersheds, from pollution, in particular from human waste.
It stated that: "No person or persons, natural or artificial, shall throw, cause or permit to be thrown into the waters of the Passaic river, or of any of the tributaries thereof, above the great falls of the Passaic river at Paterson, any carcass of any dead animal or any offal or offensive matter, or any matter or thing detrimental to health.
"[5] Laws passed in the early and mid 20th century were intended to expand the state's authority to regulate the discharge of pollution into waterways.
"[6] Chapter 280 of New Jersey's Pamphlet Laws of 1921 even established a rudimentary permit program for factories and workshops that were to be located upstream from a municipal water supply intake.
Increased population and industrialization after World War II meant that water quality across the United States was in a downward spiral.
Catalyzed by the publication of Silent Spring and a Time (magazine) article on the pollution of America's waterway's featuring pictures of the Cuyahoga River on fire, public opinion began to shift decisively in favor of strong governmental action to abate water pollution in the late 1960s.
Therefore, with the full support and cooperation of the Department of Environmental Protection, the Commission will immediately begin drafting a comprehensive water quality management act for New Jersey.
One commentator on the court's decision wrote that: "State v. Jersey Central Power & Light Co. indicates that traditional common law tort analysis might fail to provide adequate legal remedies for environmental problems" and that the "Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, however, provide hope that such problems may be prevented in the future through legislative action.
As originally enacted, the law prohibits the discharge of any pollutant (construed very broadly and including "thermal waste," likely in response to the incident at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Station, mentioned above) in a manner which might reach the waters of the State, except in conformity with a valid permit.
Indeed, the law itself states that one motivation for its passage is to " minimize direct regulation by the Federal Government of wastewater dischargers.
The following table summarizes the various amendments and supplements to the Water Pollution Control Act by the New Jersey Legislature (as of April 2022).
Currently, the Water Pollution Control Act and all its supplementary laws occupy chapter 10A of Title 58 of the Revised Statutes of New Jersey.
The law prevents the NJDEP from issuing certain permits, including for the "discharge of any radiological, chemical or biological warfare agent or high-level radioactive waste."
In 1984, Congress amended the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to establish a national regulatory framework for underground storage tanks.
It also established a fund of public money to help persons in the state to remediate or remove underground storage tanks that may be leaking.
Construction activities may also require a temporary NJPDES permit, since they frequently result in the discharge of silt and other contaminants into storm drains.
The types of facilities regulated include: mines, quarries, schools, hospitals, drinking water treatment plants, certain large office buildings, industrial manufacturing facilities, campgrounds, mobile home parks, food processors, and sewage treatment plants.
7:14B-1.1 through N.J.A.C.7:14B-16.11 deal with the underground petroleum tank management program; and N.J.A.C.7:14C-1.1 through N.J.A.C.7:14C-1.14 set out the DEP's sewage sludge monitoring requirements.
Not surprisingly due to New Jersey's dense population and history of manufacturing, the entirety of the state lies within a planning area.
