Grading and drainage in Atlantic County is shaped by strong state law. The interior towns lie in the Pinelands, where the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan controls land clearing and earthwork, and freshwater wetland transition areas up to 150 feet require an NJDEP permit.
New Jersey has no county with unincorporated land, so grading is regulated by each Atlantic municipality's ordinance plus overlapping state law. Galloway, Hamilton, Mullica, Hammonton, Egg Harbor Township, and Buena Vista lie within the Pinelands, where the Pinelands Commission and its Comprehensive Management Plan, N.J.A.C. 7:50, restrict clearing native vegetation, altering land, and disturbing the sandy soils and aquifer. Countywide, moving earth or altering drainage within a freshwater wetland transition area, up to 150 feet wide, requires an NJDEP freshwater wetlands permit, because the buffer is defined as a sediment and stormwater control zone. Regraded lots may not divert concentrated runoff onto a neighbor, a longstanding rule of New Jersey drainage law.
Clearing or grading in the Pinelands without Commission approval, disturbing a wetland transition area without an NJDEP permit, or diverting concentrated stormwater onto an adjoining lot brings state enforcement, restoration orders, and civil liability for the resulting damage.
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