News

On April 6, 2020, the Division of Water Quality (DWQ) noticed a public hearing announcement for the FY2020 NJDPES Annual Fee Report and Assessment of Fees in the New Jersey Register (52 N.J.R. 811(a)) and Times of Trenton. The public hearing is scheduled for 9:00 am on May 6, 2020 and the location was identified as the 3rd Floor Large Conference Room at 401 East State Street building in Trenton, NJ. However, in light of the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the need to restrict unnecessary travel and adopt/adhere to social distancing practices, the public hearing will no longer be held in Trenton. Rather, the hearing will be conducted virtually via the NJDEP's video conferencing software (i.e. Microsoft Teams). The time and date of the hearing remain unchanged. A link to the virtual public hearing will be provided on the Department’s NJPDES fees website (i.e. https://www.nj.gov/dep/dwq/njpdesfees.html) the morning of the hearing. The hearing will remain open until 10:00 AM or until all testimony has been heard.

Prior to entering the hearing, participants are strongly encouraged to read the following information and guidelines:

• Access to the public hearing is available on your computer or mobile device through either the Microsoft Teams application or the device’s web browser.
• The web browsers that best support Microsoft Teams meetings are Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, Chrome, and Firefox.
• The hearing will begin promptly at the designated starting time of 9:00 am.
• The hearing will be moderated by a NJDEP representative.
• Prior to entering the hearing, participants will be provided a field to enter their name. In order to achieve an accurate record of attendees to the hearing, the NJDEP is requesting that, in the provided field, participants type their full name and the organization that they represent.
• As a courtesy to other people testifying, participants will be muted until they are called upon by the NJDEP hearing officer/moderator to testify. At that time, participants will be expected to unmute their microphones to provide testimony.
• If an attendee to the public hearing would like to provide testimony, they should notify the NJDEP moderator/hearing officer of their interest by typing their name and the name of the organization that they represent in the conversation box for the Microsoft Teams virtual meeting room. When called upon for testimony, participants will be asked to re-state this information.
• The hearing will be recorded for public record. Although the virtual hearing allows for video testimony, it is not required. If you do not wish to submit video testimony, please turn off your video feed during the hearing. However, please be sure that your microphone on to testify
• At the beginning of the meeting, a NJDEP representative will provide a brief demonstration on how to unmute/mute your microphones, how to turn off your video feed, and how to access the hearing’s conversation box.

 If you have any questions regarding the public hearing, please feel free to contact the Permit Administration NJPDES Fee Unit via email at dwq_pas@dep.nj.gov.