EnviroPolitics

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Editorial

Multilingual Clean Ups?

New Jersey Law Journal   -   October 5, 2007

Every once in a while, a government agency proposes something that causes us to scratch
 our heads and inquire, "What in the world are they thinking?" The latest example comes
 from New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection.

A law enacted last year (P.L.2006, ch.65) required the DEP to adopt regulations requiring
any person cleaning up a contaminated site to provide written notice of the remediation
activity to "local property owners and tenants who reside within 200 feet of the contaminated
 site." Sounds simple enough; analogous notice requirements have long been utilized under the
Municipal Land Use Law.

In its proposed regulations published in the New Jersey Register last month, however, the
DEP opted unduly (and unreasonably) to complicate this simple requirement. Before any
notice can be sent, the DEP would first require the person conducting the clean up to perform
 a survey to identify all "sensitive populations and resources" in the area, including residences,
potable wells, schools, child care facilities, parks, playgrounds, surface water and wellhead
protection areas, even though the statute contains no such requirement.

Moreover, the DEP would require identification of all "non-English speaking people" who
 inhabit the area, attend any of the schools or child care centers, or use any of the parks,
playgrounds, surface water or potable wells. This requirement goes far beyond what the
 statute requires and the agency offers no guidance as to how it is to be accomplished.

The DEP would require that notice be given not only in English but also in "the non-English
 language" spoken by any users of such facilities and resources. So if one Hindi-speaking family|
 picnics in the park, or a few Russian-speaking kids play in the playground, or a French-speaking
 individual takes a drink from a water fountain, or a local business has a Spanish-speaking employee,
or a landlord has a Swedish-speaking tenant, the person trying to clean up a contaminated site must
 spend the time and money first to identify these people, then to hire interpreter(s) to prepare notices
 in each language, and then to serve them (as well as the English notices) on everyone within 200 feet.

While the DEP's proposal is no doubt well intentioned, it is clear regulatory overkill, going far beyond
 the simple notice requirement (in English) the Legislature intended. The DEP should immediately
 withdraw this proposal, go back to the drawing board and implement the simple and straightforward
notice requirements mandated by the statute.