Throughout the COVID-19 public health emergency, keeping up with deadlines and time frames has been a difficult task for many. The State of New Jersey as well as the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) have recognized these hardships in the context of NJ’s environmental regulations by extending some of the time frames typically required for compliance.

When a person or entity is responsible for remediating a contaminated property, they are required to do so within regulated time frames. The DEP began extending these time frames due to the COVID-19 public health emergency in April 2020. The most recent extension of these remediation time frames became effective February 1, 2021 and extends certain remediation time frames for a total of 455 days, inclusive of the prior 270-day extension. In order to qualify for these extensions, whomever is responsible for the remediation must have retained a licensed cite remediation professional N.J.A.C. 7:26C-2.3.

New Jersey also recognized the hardships for those attempting to maintain environmental compliance by Governor Murphy’s signing the Permit Extension Act of 2020 back in July. This legislation applied retroactively, extending the deadline for renewing certain permits that were due to expire in March 2020 until October 2020. As COVID-19 precautions have continued to lift, the DEP has become less inclined to continue extending deadlines or be lenient on those citing COVID-19 as their reason for falling out of compliance.

You can read in more detail about the most recent remediation time frame extensions here: https://www.nj.gov/dep/covid19regulatorycompliance/docs/srp-remedial-timeframes-20210201.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery