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CSG Law Alert: NJDEP Adopts New Form to Expedite Review of Groundwater Remedial Action Permits

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (“NJDEP”) has posted a new form for applications for Ground Water Remedial Action Permits (“GRAPs”) entitled “LSRP Supplemental Certification for Initial Groundwater Remedial Action Permit (RAP) Application for Monitored Natural Attenuation (MNA) (version 1.1, 6/17/2024).” The purpose of this GRAP Certification form is to expedite review of GRAP applications that meet certain criteria.

The GRAP Certification form must be completed by the case’s Licensed Site Remediation Professional (“LSRP”) and can be submitted for both new GRAP applications and GRAP applications previously submitted to NJDEP. The LSRP is required to complete the form, and if the site meets the applicability criteria, then the form shall be submitted for both new and previously submitted applications. However, the form should only be submitted if all the criteria can be met.

For previously submitted GRAP applications, the LSRP must certify that (i) the pending application has no outstanding administrative issues and (ii) the NJDEP has not issued a comment letter (e.g., Notice of Incompleteness or Notice of Technical Deficiency). For both new and previously submitted GRAP applications, the LSRP must certify to the following 13 statements:

1. The site is not a traditional oversight or direct oversight case with an assigned NJDEP case manager.
2. The site is not a landfill case.
3. The site is not a school, childcare facility, or residence.
4. For groundwater data being used to demonstrate MNA, there are no individual contaminant concentrations that are three (3) or more orders of magnitude greater than the NJDEP groundwater remediation standard (“GWRS”), and none of the contaminants exceed 1% of their effective water solubility.
5. There is no competent bedrock groundwater contamination above the GWRS.
6. There is not a commingled plume condition for similar constituents.
7. There is no groundwater contamination above the GWRS containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”).
8. There are no exceedances of the Acute or Chronic Aquatic Surface Water Ecological Screening Criteria or the Human Health Surface Water Standards in surface water or pore water.
9. The Remedial Action does not include a proposed technical impracticability determination.
10. The Remedial Action does not currently include an active groundwater remediation system.
11. The Remedial Action does not include a Point of Entry Treatment water system.
12. The Remedial Action does not include a vapor intrusion (“VI”) engineering control or mitigation system.
13. The Remedial Action does not have soil gas contamination above the NJDEP’s Soil Gas Screening Levels beneath any building(s) that require a VI Long-Term Monitoring Plan.

The LSRP must supply additional information on the GRAP Certification form related to demonstrability of MNA, completion of delineation, contamination trends, plume stability, free product, remediation of soils in the unsaturated zone, groundwater monitoring plans, receptor evaluation, and remedy protectiveness of human health the environment.

The GRAP Certification joins the SRAP Certification introduced in February 2024 as part of the overall efforts of NJDEP to streamline the Site Remediation Process. On May 2, 2023, NJDEP’s Contaminated Site Remediation & Redevelopment program issued a Remediation Process Improvement Initiative. The newly available GRAP and SRAP Certifications are both indicators that NJDEP is attempting to reduce its backlog of permit applications. RAPs are often the last hurdles to clear before an LSRP can issue a Response Action Outcome to close a contaminated site case.

Presently, NJDEP review of GRAP applications often take more than a year. This GRAP Certification is a welcome change and is anticipated to ease the NJDEP’s application backlog. However, the 13 vetting criteria will render the form inapplicable to certain cases. For example, requiring the absence of PFAS may be a major obstacle for many applications, given the pervasiveness of PFAS in the environment. CSG Law’s Environmental Department will work with LSRPs and clients as this new process rolls out in the coming months.

Patrick T. Mottola