'Fatal Flaw' in Diamond Chip's Mega Application with NJ DEP?

SPARTA, NJ – Was it an oversight? How was one of the important elements of the Diamond Chip Realty application to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection that changed, changed and changed again, end up getting submitted incorrectly over and over.

Approval of Sussex County Water Quality Plan amendment is a necessary part of DCR’s application. It relies, in part on the calculation of how much wastewater will flow into the Germany Flats Aquifer beneath the site.

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The crux of the issue is determining which statute should be used to make the calculation: NJAC 7:14A-23.3 or NJAC 7:9A-7.4. The choice, while left to the applicant to select, is expected to be correct, per the NJ DEP. The two options are for different methods of dealing with wastewater and come with different calculations for determining the wastewater flow.

“Fatal Flaw”

Kirit Amin, NJ DEP Supervisor of the Treatment Works Approval Section at the  NJDEP Division of Water Quality was unequivocal in his response to the question, put to him by Sparta resident Anand Dash.

Amin confirmed the applicant DCR used the incorrect flow standard in their most recent application.

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He said, “The applicant must use to calculate design flow, noted in NJAC 7:14A-23.3, Projected Flow criteria, when project is for onsite treatment & disposal system with flow is > 2000GPD.”

New Jersey Highlands Coalition Policy and Communications Director Elliott Ruga said, “Anand Dash is to be congratulated for uncovering a fatal flaw of this application that half a dozen professionals should have and didn’t catch including the staff at DEP. There is enough evidence to show it was intentional deception by the applicant that should at least require them to reapply.”

The clue that there was an issue with DCR’s calculation came when they changed the number of employees from 200 to 555 but the number of gallons per day or GPD of wastewater did not change.

It was not just that the selection was incorrect in one instance. The calculation for wastewater flow was shared with all the boards and entities that were required to give consent to the requested amendment.

Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority, Sussex County Water Quality Management PAC, Sussex County Commissioners and the New Jersey Highlands Council all approved letters of consent for DCR’s plan with incorrect calculations or calculations based on outdated information from the developer. The Sparta Township Council's resolution had the incorrect information but did not approve because of a different issue.

Three Versions, Two Calculations

While DCR estimates of the number of employees has ranged from 80 to 555, they have submitted three iterations of their proposed facility. Each version was announced by a letter from DCR water engineer Jens Reidel.

The first letter, dated May 2021 contained an application form, a table demonstrating the flow calculations for 200 employees with 100 “transit” and 45,000 square feet of office space, each element having its own calculation to be added together to get to a total of 10,000 GPD based on the NJAC 7:14 calculation.

In May 2021 DCR submitted an application for a septic permit to the Sussex County Department of Health and Human Services with an estimate of 80 employes and 150 “users."

The second letter from Reidel dated September 2022 increased the employees to 300, lowered the office space to 20,000 square feet and the transit number remained at 100 with the total 10,000 GPD, based on NJAC 7:14 calculation.

The third letter only included a legal notice, a map and sample resolution for the various boards to use. There was no table showing the calculation and no application. Buried in the language of the legal notice was the information that the employees had been increased to 555, the other numbers remained the same, including 10,000 GPD, based on NJAC 7:9 calculation.

This significant change underestimated the GPD by 7,000.

The third letter was used by Sparta Township’s Engineer Cory Stoner, SCMUA’s Engineer James Sesto to create their resolutions to support DCR’s request for an amendment.

Old Information or Conflicting Calculations

Sussex County WQM PAC, New Jersey Highlands Council and the Sussex County Commissioners based their resolutions on the 2022 calculations and outdated DCR plans.

The Sussex County Commissioners’ resolution approving DCR’s request for a WQMP amendment on August 21, 2024 did not include reference to the third Reidel letter with the increased number of employees.  They approved their resolution, despite being advised at their meeting by Dash it was based on incorrect information.

TAPinto Sparta had also written to Commissioner Director Jill Space in July advising the wastewater flow calculation appeared incorrect in their resolution.

The response to TAPinto Sparta's OPRA request to the Sussex County Commissioners  for the third Reidel letter was “A search of the County’s land use records located no such document.” The commissioners, apparently,  did not have the updated information.

Sparta Township Council’s resolution did not support the request but not because of this issue. The February 2024 resolution said they did not have enough information to approve because the use question has not yet been settled. This issue of the incorrect GPD calculation was not presented to the council members.

Sparta Planning Board did not have the third letter with the different calculation. An OPRA request made by TAPinto Sparta was initially rejected because “no documents were responsive to the request.”

Two days later TAPinto Sparta was advised “t his was not found originally in Planning because it's not a Planning Board document but Cory Stoner was able to provide it to Dorrie.” The letter was addressed to township clerk Roxanne Landy.

To recap:

Sparta Township’s February 13, 2024  resolution 9-9 includes the correct number of employees found in Reidel’s third letter but does not discuss wastewater flow calculations.

SCMUA’s January 17, 2024 resolution references Reidel’s third letter and the calculation of 10,000 GPD based on NJAC 7:9 is not questioned.

Highlands Council approved the proposed amendment to be consistent with the New Water Availability provisions of the Highlands Regional Master Plan on January 10, 2023. That would have been prior to the third Reidel letter issued December 2023. The Highlands Council’s approval is based on outdated information.

According to the Highlands Council’s consistency letter, dated both January 10, 2022  on page one and January 10, 2023 on page two, “If any changes are made in the water use associated with the current WAP, the Highlands Council will issue a separate Highlands Consistency Determination.”

The NJ DEP held a public hearing in May 2024.

The Sparta Planning Board is not scheduling any hearings pending the result of DCR's most recent lawsuit.

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