As of May 2012, any site remediation projects (there are a few exceptions, such as certain Federal-lead cases and residential heating oil tanks) in the state of NJ are no longer directly overseen by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). Remediation projects are now supervised privately by a Licensed Site Remediation Professional (LSRP). This was done for a number of reasons. According to the State of NJ’s own website http://www.state.nj.us/dep/srp/, the primary reasons were “...to increase the pace of remediation, thus helping to decrease the threat of contamination to public health and safety and of the environment, and to quickly return underutilized properties to productive use.”
What does this mean for you? It means you are required to:
- Hire a licensed site remediation professional to perform the remediation. Although you no longer need prior approval from the NJDEP, you must notify the department and provide the name and licensing information of the contractor hired to perform the remediation.
- Obtain all required permits and pay any applicable fees.
- Establish a remediation funding source if a remediation funding source is required. This is the tricky one. You will want to carefully research the contractor. The best LSRP in NJ will be able to guide you through this.
- Meet all mandatory remediation time frames established by the NJDEP
Often, to a property owner, remediation of their property is viewed as an added expense. While this is true, I would like to point out the importance of inhabiting a clean and safe environment, not only for ourselves and our children, but for future generations to come. The number one priority of any LSRP is, and should be, the protection of public health and safety and the environment.
