When NJDEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson testified before a joint session of Senate and Assembly committees which oversee environmental issues, she discussed a number of legislative reforms proposed by NJDEP to address the substantial backlog of cleanup cases in New Jersey, concerns of the NJDEP regarding site remediation at “brownfield” sites, additional oversight of residential development at contaminated properties and other changes to the site remediation program.  According to the Star Ledger, the Commissioner proposed the following:

[A]fter a year of discussions with environmental activists and the business community, the DEP is proposing licensing environmental consultants — engineers who would be hired by polluters to supervise cleanups in place of DEP staff. Only 20 percent of the projects would have to be checked by the DEP, leaving the rest to be declared clean by the licensed consulting engineers.

[Assistant Commissioner Irene] Kropp said the proposal is considered the key factor in the effort to hasten cleanups but it is strongly opposed by environmentalists who argue the DEP would be leaving the cleanup of up to 14,000 polluted sites to engineers who would be paid by polluters.

. . . . 

The DEP also wants to be able to set the time frame for property cleanups, establish a “one-call” cleanup permitting system, and levy a 1 percent surcharge on chemicals to raise $2 million annually for the state Remediation Guarantee Fund, which totals $5 million.

Other proposals would encourage urban “brownfields” redevelopment by limiting potential cleanup responsibility for a buyer to the site itself and not for off-property pollution. DEP also wants more authority to rule when a formerly polluted property is proposed for the site of a school, child-care center or houses. The changes would raise state aid for the removal of residential underground storage tanks from $3,000 to $4,000, and help finance the cleanup of pollution related to dry-cleaning businesses by using money from the $108 million underground storage tank removal fund.

For the full article from the April 16, 2008 Star Ledger, click here.

For a link to the full testimony of Commissioner Jackson and Assitant Commissioner Kropp, as well as the NJDEP proposed legislative reforms and white paper click here.