NJ 2016 State Damage Prevention Program

Overview

Main Objective

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities ("NJBPU") will use the 2016 State Damage Prevention ("SDP") Program Grant funds for personnel expenses to enforce its damage prevention laws and regulations. The 2015 SDP Program Grant funds were also used for this purpose. The requested funds for 2016 will be used to offset salary and fringe benefit expenses for the staff addition hired in 2015 and salary for a temporary, contractual staff member to perform damage prevention compliance enforcement and related program activities. At the end of 2015 the NJBPU damage prevention interim program manager retired, so the program continues to be under-staffed for the damage prevention workload. The staff addition is mostly dedicated to damage prevention / enforcement related to natural gas facilities and will continue to coordinate work with the NJBPU pipeline safety program. Both staff members included in the 2016 SDP Grant application will conduct inspections of probable non-compliance and complaints related to the New Jersey Underground Facility Protection Act ("Act"), issue probable non-compliance enforcement actions, address responses to non-compliance enforcement actions, assist with case preparation for proposed enforcement penalties for probable non- compliance with the Act, and track probable non-compliance and complaint inspections and actions through the NJBPU damage prevention program database. Both staff members will interact frequently with excavators, utilities, pipeline operators, and other stakeholders.

Public Abstract

• Element 7 (Enforcement): Enforcement of State damage prevention laws and regulations for all aspects of the damage prevention process, including public education, and the use of civil penalties for violations assessable by the appropriate State authority.

Relevant Files & Links