On February 5, 1996, NJDEP proposed a major restructuring of several areas of water-related regulations, including the New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System ("NJPDES"), Water Quality Management Planning, Surface Water Quality Standards, and Water Pollution Control Act rules. The proposed rules represent a major shift in the focus of water permitting, replacing the current emphasis on individual discharges with a watershed based approach, in which all effects on a watershed will be considered in establishing a coordinated basis for permit limits. The proposed rules call for examination of each New Jersey watershed by cooperative efforts of NJDEP, the regulated community, and other citizens. The agency believes that a watershed-based approach will allow for greater flexibility in permitting. In so far as the implementation of watershed studies will take some time, NJDEP has proposed an interim permitting approach that uses either water quality-based or technology based-limits for existing dischargers, and generic limits for new permittees.
NJDEP also has attempted to simplify the rules by reducing cross-referencing and redundancy within programs as well as between groups of related rules. The proposed rules include various administrative reforms intended to make it faster and easier for permittees to obtain, modify and renew NJPDES permits.