Background
Carteret Business Partnership sought a treatment works approval (TWA) to build two sanitary-sewer laterals for a 64-unit mixed-use development in Carteret. The project’s wastewater would travel through Carteret’s system, then Woodbridge’s conveyance system, to the Middlesex County Utilities Authority’s treatment plant.
CBP’s application included Carteret’s required signatures but not the MCUA’s certification as owner of the receiving treatment plant. MCUA declined to sign because Woodbridge would not consent to carrying the project’s flow through its system. DEP denied the application. An administrative law judge ruled that DEP should consider the application and the reasons consent was withheld, but the DEP Commissioner reversed and entered summary decision for DEP.
The Court’s Holding
The Appellate Division affirmed DEP’s final decision. It held that DEP reasonably interpreted N.J.A.C. 7:14A-22.8(a)(3) to make the receiving wastewater treatment plant owner’s consent a mandatory prerequisite to DEP’s consideration of a TWA application.
The regulation’s alternative procedures for unavailable consent refer to an “affected municipality or sewerage authority,” not to the owner of the receiving treatment plant. The court deferred to DEP’s interpretation that those procedures did not authorize review or approval when MCUA withheld its required consent. Because MCUA’s nonconsent was undisputed, DEP did not have to investigate MCUA’s or Woodbridge’s reasons for withholding consent.
Key Takeaways
- A TWA application requires consent from the owner of the receiving wastewater treatment plant.
- DEP’s alternative consent procedures do not excuse the absence of the treatment plant owner’s consent.
- DEP need not resolve an intermunicipal dispute over sewer conveyance before rejecting an application missing that mandatory consent.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that treatment-plant consent is not merely an administrative formality in New Jersey’s TWA process. Developers and municipalities must secure the receiving plant owner’s approval before DEP may reach the merits of a proposed connection.
It also reinforces judicial deference to DEP’s reasonable interpretation of its own environmental permitting regulations.