Title 58: Waters and Water Supply

Section 1: Legal Paraphrase

Title 58 comprises New Jersey's statutes governing the protection, allocation, and management of the State's waters. Its flagship program, the Water Pollution Control Act (N.J.S.A. 58:10A-1 et seq.), makes it unlawful to discharge pollutants into State waters without a New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NJPDES) permit and authorizes the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to enforce effluent limits through penalties and injunctions. The Water Quality Planning Act (N.J.S.A. 58:11A) mandates areawide water-quality planning, while the Water Supply Management Act (N.J.S.A. 58:1A-1 et seq.) declares water a public asset held in trust for the citizens and regulates diversions and allocation permits. The Title also contains the Safe Drinking Water Act (N.J.S.A. 58:12A), the Flood Hazard Area Control Act (N.J.S.A. 58:16A-50 et seq.), and the Spill Compensation and Control Act (N.J.S.A. 58:10-23.11), which imposes strict liability for hazardous-substance discharges. These chapters form a permit-based, DEP-administered regulatory regime for the State's waters.

Section 2: ELI-10 Explanation

Imagine all of New Jersey's water — rivers, lakes, and the water under the ground — as one giant shared swimming pool with a lifeguard. Title 58 is the lifeguard's rulebook. First rule: nobody may dump junk into the pool. Factories and towns that send water back into rivers must first earn a special "permission card" (a permit) promising to clean the water first, and the lifeguard can fine them if they break that promise. Second rule: the pool can run dry. Everyone who takes a lot of water — farms, towns, businesses — must tell the lifeguard how much they use, so the lifeguard can make sure enough is left for everybody. Third rule: don't build your sandcastle where the tide comes in. Houses and stores cannot be built in flood zones without permission. The lifeguard — the Department of Environmental Protection — watches over the water for everyone.

Section 3: General Application & Case Example 1

How It Is Applied

Title 58 is applied chiefly through DEP's permit, planning, and enforcement programs. Under the Water Pollution Control Act, any person discharging pollutants into ground or surface waters must hold an NJPDES permit (N.J.S.A. 58:10A-6a), which sets enforceable effluent limits, monitoring, and reporting conditions; the DEP Commissioner may grant, modify, suspend, or revoke permits (58:10A-6c), and the public may comment, with statutorily defined third-party hearing rights (58:10A-7d, -7e). Violators face civil administrative penalties of up to $50,000 per day, court-imposed penalties, and injunctive relief (58:10A-10). Parallel regimes govern water allocation: the Water Supply Management Act requires registration and permits for water diversions (58:1A-6), and the Flood Hazard Area Control Act requires permits for development in floodplains (58:16A-52). The Title thus governs everyone from factories and sewage authorities to farmers, developers, and municipal water utilities, and its provisions are routinely litigated in contested cases before the Office of Administrative Law, appeals to the Appellate Division, and citizen challenges.

Case Example

• Case Name & Citation: In re NJPDES Permit No. NJ0025241, 185 N.J. 474, 888 A.2d 454 (2006)
• Statute Applied: N.J.S.A. 58:10A-1 to -43 (Water Pollution Control Act), principally 58:10A-6a, 58:10A-6c, and 58:10A-7d, -7e
• Brief Summary: Clean Ocean Action, an environmental organization, sought "party" status under N.J.S.A. 58:10A-7e to force an administrative hearing contesting DEP's renewal of the NJPDES discharge permit for Asbury Park's wastewater treatment facility. DEP denied the request because the group raised no significant issue of fact or law likely to affect the permit decision, and the Appellate Division affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the WPCA's third-party hearing right is triggered only by a genuine dispute over adjudicative facts — not by policy disagreements, which are resolved through the public-comment process — while cautioning DEP that future hearing-denials must be integrated, reasoned decisions. The case illustrates how the WPCA structures public participation in discharge permitting.
• Source Link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2883389161445746121

Section 4: ELI-10 Application & Case Example 2

Real World Example (Explained Simply)

Picture the water under New Jersey as a big community juice box that everyone shares. If one person drinks too much, there may be none left for the rest. Title 58 makes the state the referee of the juice box. A farmer who uses lots of water to water crops must fill out a "water report card" — a certification telling the state how much water the farm takes and why. The state checks all the report cards to make sure every farm, town, and business gets a fair share, and if one region is running low, the state can declare it a "critical area" and stop new customers from hooking up. But the referee has rules too: the state may only make rules that the Legislature actually allowed it to make. If the state tries to invent a new rule that the law does not give it power to create — like charging farmers extra fees the Legislature never approved — a court will throw that rule out, just like a referee cannot invent a new penalty that is not in the rulebook.

Case Example

• Case Name & Citation: In re Agricultural, Aquacultural, and Horticultural Water Usage Certification Rules, 410 N.J. Super. 209, 981 A.2d 99 (App. Div. 2009)
• Statute Applied: N.J.S.A. 58:1A-1 to -17 (Water Supply Management Act of 1981), principally 58:1A-2, 58:1A-5, and 58:1A-6(a)(2)
• Brief Summary: The New Jersey Farm Bureau challenged DEP's readoption and amendment of N.J.A.C. 7:20A, the water-usage certification regulations implementing the Water Supply Management Act. The Appellate Division upheld most of the regulations but struck down four provisions as ultra vires — beyond DEP's statutory authority. DEP had unlawfully demoted county agricultural agents from decision-makers on agricultural water-diversion certifications, contrary to N.J.S.A. 58:1A-6(a)(2), and had imposed wetlands-protection and mitigation obligations the Water Act does not authorize. Reaffirming that water is a public asset held in trust under N.J.S.A. 58:1A-2 and that DEP must "control, conserve, and manage" the State's water supply under 58:1A-5, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding agencies cannot amend statutes "by administrative fiat."
• Source Link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1082061909002962844