Cable Owners challenge New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection 37
On January 7, 2002, NJDEP published proposed regulations dealing with submerged cables. In separate official comments filed by the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) and Nor th American Submarine Cable Association (NASCA), cable owners served notice that New Jersey has gone too far. The NJDEP Proposed Rules include 27 prohibitions and restrictions on cable laying, repair, and maintenance, and impose for the first time a financial penalty on submarine telecoms and power cables which will cost the cable industry millions of dollars over the life of each new cable installed. All of these changes were the result of political pressure applied by local New Jersey fishing groups on NJDEP who rely on clam dredging and bottom trawling as their principal marine activity. The Proposed Rules in effect seek to expand the state of New Jersey’s claimed Atlantic Ocean jurisdiction over submarine cables from the present acknowledged three nautical mile limit of the state’s territorial
by Douglas R. Burnett