 | Vol. 3 No. 2 Fall 1995 |
| A Newsletter About New Jersey's Water Quality Programs |
Amendments to NJPDES Stormwater and Owner/Operator Rules Proposed
The department proposed amendments to the NJPDES rules in the May 15, 1995, New Jersey Register (27 N.J.R. 1857). Although these amendments are mostly limited to the NJPDES Statewide Stormwater Permitting Program, a few of them apply throughout the NJPDES program. In particular, the department proposed to amend the rule that requires a facility owner to obtain a NJPDES permit. The existing NJPDES rules require a person who owns a regulated facility and a person operating that facility (if different) to both obtain a NJPDES permit. Under the proposed amendments, when a facility is owned by one person but is currently operated by another person, only the "operating entity" is required to obtain a NJPDES permit.
This proposed amendment makes the NJPDES rules consistent with EPA regulations, but uses the term "operating entity" (rather than "operator") because the term "operator" is used in a much different sense in the Water Supply and Wastewater Operators' Licensing Act. "Operating entity" is defined in the proposed amendments as "any person who alone or along with other persons has primary management and operational decision-making authority over any part of a facility." (For many facilities, such a "person" may be a corporation, public agency, etc., rather than an individual.)
Other proposed amendments of general interest include a more detailed definition of "non-point source," and an amendment to make it clear that when a single NJPDES permit is issued to more than one person, that permit may identify permit conditions that apply to only one or more of those permittees.
A draft of most of the proposed amendments was provided in late 1993 to the Industrial Stormwater Permitting Advisory Group. A public hearing on the proposed amendments was held on June 9, 1995, and the public comment period ended on June 14, 1995.
Some of the proposed amendments limited to the NJPDES Statewide Stormwater Permitting Program include:
- Requiring NJPDES/DSW permits for "stormwater discharge associated with industrial activity" from non-point sources into surface waters.
- Limiting liability for stormwater run-on.
- Exempting all stormwater discharges from Subchapter 14 oil and grease effluent limitations and monitoring requirements.
- Allowing a member of an industrial stormwater group application to EPA to use, subject to department approval, group sampling data for an individual permit application.
- Allowing the splitting of facilities between individual stormwater permits and the "basic industrial" stormwater general permit (NJ0088315).
The department is currently reviewing all of the comments submitted during the public comment period. If you have any questions about the proposed amendments, please contact William Minervini, Bureau of Stormwater Permitting, at (609) 633-7021.
Articles appearing in the New Jersey Discharger may be reprinted provided source credit is given.
Tom Cosmas converted the original text into this HTML and is willing to accept most of the blame for any typo errors.
Last revision 4/15/96