Quality Assurance Program

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP or “Department”) administers environmental programs and requires adherence with state and federal regulations that require environmental data to be of documented quality. In order to comply with these regulations, the Department implements a quality management plan. This Quality Management Plan (QMP) documents our Department’s quality system and describes our quality policies and procedures, roles, responsibilities, and authorities. The USEPA requires that states receiving federal grants have a QMP with quality assurance activities consistent with the requirements given in Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations Parts 31 and 35. The Code of Federal Regulations lists both general and specific requirements for a state’s environmental programs and acceptable quality assurance (QA) for federally funded programs. The Department, recognizing the importance of quality assurance, has adopted the QA requirements given in the Code of Federal Regulations and has applied them to all of its environmental programs including, “state only” programs, those programs where the USEPA has no jurisdiction. The Department has the responsibility to ensure that environmental data is generated, compiled, and reviewed under specific quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures to ensure that it is suitable for its intended use.

The Department is required by USEPA Region II to develop and maintain its QA Program, and to prepare a Department Quality Management Plan  (QMP or plan) that defines the Department’s mission and planned QA activities for the forthcoming fiscal years. The QMP was written to conform to the requirements outlined in the USEPA document, “EPA Requirements For Quality Management Plans”, EPA QA/R-2, March 2001.  In 2023, the EPA issued a new Quality Management Plan Standard, Directive No: CIO 2105-S-01.0.  The OQA is in the process of revising the existing QMP to address the new EPA requirements contained therein; however, in the interim the new Standard should be followed.  The NJDEP’s QA Program includes documentation of management’s environmental principles and objectives, organizational responsibilities, and policies and procedures for the generation, compilation, review, and use of data of documented quality. The USEPA Region II has responsibility for overseeing Departmental QA activities associated with those programs over which USEPA has jurisdiction. The goal of this plan is to maintain a quality system to implement the Department’s QA policies. The QMP may also be viewed as the framework document under which individual projects are conducted.

The Department’s QMP is supported by project specific Quality Assurance Project Plans (QAPPs).  A QAPP is the blueprint by which an individual project involving environmental data is planned, implemented and evaluated.  The Department maintains a policy that no environmental data collection activities are performed by or for the Department until after a QAPP covering those activities has been approved by the OQA.  The OQA has developed a QAPP template, which can optionally be used to aid in QAPP development.  The template was designed following the organizational structure established in the Quality Assurance Project Plan Standard (EPA Directive No.: CIO 2105-S-02.0). The OQA also created a QAPP checklist, which will be completed by OQA staff when reviewing submitted QAPPs.   QAPP authors can optionally use this checklist to perform self-assessments prior to QAPP submittal.  A completed copy of the checklist, identifying where applicable information can be found within the QAPP, may be submitted to the OQA with the draft QAPP in order to help expedite the review process.  NJDEP Programs and external stakeholders are encouraged to use this template and checklist to facility consistency with QAPP development and review.  In addition, OQA staff are available for technical assistance with QAPP planning and development.