Town and Country Fined $600,000-Plus for Installing Residential Sewer Line Without Permit
TRENTON, October 19, 2007 – A three-judge Appellate panel has upheld the state’s assessment of a $600,000 penalty against a developer who installed a major sewer line without first obtaining the required state permit, Attorney General Anne Milgram announced today.
In a ruling issued today, the Appellate panel affirmed a $604,110 civil penalty assessed against Town and Country Developers of New Jersey, Inc. by the state Department of Environmental Protection. DEP assessed the penalty after Town and Country installed, without a permit required under the “dry sewer law” provision of the state’s Water Pollution Control Act, sewer infrastructure designed to serve a 600-plus-unit development of town homes and single-family-dwellings in Nutley, Essex county.
In upholding an earlier Final Agency Determination against Town and Country by DEP, the Appellate panel also rejected the developer’s argument that the state-imposed civil penalty was exempted by New Jersey’s so-called Grace Period Law. The Grace Period Law makes provisions for violations that are inadvertent or unwitting in nature, or corrected (or correctable) within a short period of time. The Appellate panel determined that, as the state had maintained, Town and Country was well aware of its obligation to obtain a DEP permit, and that its installation of a major sewer line without one was deliberate.
“We are committed to upholding the law and, simply put, the law says there will be no construction of sewers in New Jersey without a state permit,” said Attorney General Milgram. “The purpose of the law is to provide the state with ultimate authority over decisions that should be driven by what is the safest and most environmentally sound course, not by local and private development interests. We don’t take willful breaches of the law lightly, and will work with DEP to prosecute such cases where appropriate.”
Said DEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson, ”This company’s actions completely flew in the face of our comprehensive permit program that protects New Jersey’s ground water and surface water supplies through the proper construction of sewers.”
”We will not tolerate developers taking it upon themselves to skirt our permit program, which exists solely to protect our environment,” Jackson added.
Town and Country, headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, began developing its 602-unit housing development in Nutley in the late 1990s. Sanitary sewers for a portion of the project were built over a 10-day period in the fall of 1998.
Town and Country did not, however, file an application for the required permit with DEP until June 10, 1999 – more than six months after construction of the sewer line was complete and two houses in the first construction phase of the project were built and occupied.
Town and Country obtained the permit on July 30, 1999 – nearly two full weeks after the sewer line was already in use. (The “dry sewer law” provision of the Water Pollution Control Act prohibits construction of sewer lines without approvals, even if the lines at issue are never used.)
Following an investigation, the DEP issued an Administrative Order and Notice of Civil Administrative Penalty Assessment against Town and Country in 2003. There was a subsequent hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, followed by the Final Agency Determination from DEP which rejected Town and Country’s argument concerning the grace period provisions of the law.
Town and Country appealed the Final Agency Determination, reiterating the argument that its failure to obtain a DEP permit was a “minor” violation excusable under the Grace Period Law.
The Appellate panel disagreed, noting that Town and Country not only failed to file its state permit application in a timely fashion, but also had installed and operated the residential sewer line illegally. Town and Country offered an alternative argument that the DEP-imposed $604,110 penalty was erroneously calculated. The Appellate panel rejected that argument as well.
Deputy Attorney General Robert Marshall, of the Division of Law’s Environmental Enforcement Section, handled the Town and Country matter on behalf of the state.
