The Compliance Assistance Sectoin (CAS) responds to violation determinations and provides water systems with compliance assistance in order for a system to comply with the federal and state Safe Drinking Water Acts. Compliance assistance includes consultation with the affected water system and evaluating their responses and actions taken in response to a violation. These compliance activities include development and issuance of public notifications and public education, remedial investigations, and implementation of corrective actions including special or routine sampling requirements. CAS is also the main section responsible for Lead and Copper Rule compliance, providing support regarding action level exceedances, sampling, public education, and lead service lines.

CAS is also responsible for small system technical assistance, this includes regulatory review and on-site evaluation to identify the cause or causes of technical deficiencies that contribute to the system’s non-compliance and establish an improvement plan with technical assistance, to enable the system to achieve and maintain technical capacity. For non-community water systems, technical assistance and remedial measures are coordinated with the county health agency. Water Systems unresponsive to this level of assistance, or water systems with managerial and financial capacity deficiencies are referred to the Capacity Development Program within the Bureau of Water System Engineering for a comprehensive Technical, Managerial, and financial capacity review.

CAS may also conduct site visits of water systems as requested by the water system, County Health Department or NJDEP’s Bureau of Compliance and Enforcement.

CAS conducts sampling plan reviews for the Revised Total Coliform Rule and Lead and Copper Rule depending on the type of system and reason the sampling plan was required to be submitted to the DEP.

CAS is also responsible for addressing water system emergencies occurring during business hours. Water emergencies may range from an uncontrolled water main break to a spill potentially impacting a water supply.

Water quality complaints received from the general public are also addressed by CAS if the customer did not receive an adequate response from his/her water system. Activities include obtaining information from the customer regarding the nature of the complaint, relaying information to the water system, receiving details back from the water system including any investigation results, such as sampling and responding to the customer.

Lastly, CAS is the lead for developing New Jersey’s Lead and Copper Rule. In 2019, the Division was tasked to evaluate the federal Lead and Copper Rule and develop a proposed New Jersey Lead and Copper Rule to address the many shortfalls and miscommunication of the existing regulations. CAS was tasked as the lead to conduct the technical review and provide suggestions to make necessary and warranted regulatory changes.  In addition, CAS staff are serving as the Division’s representative during Department of Education’s evaluation of their lead regulations.  CAS staff are responsible for providing technical support and guidance to assist in the development of anticipated revised rule language requiring lead sampling in schools.