Bill > S1412

Introduced Session

This bill dedicates $5,000,000 from sales tax revenues to a special dredging account, created in this bill and named the "The Community and Navigational Waterways Restorative and Maintenance Dredging Account," for the purposes of funding the dredging of waterways in the State outside of the port region. More specifically, the monies are to be used for the dredging of navigational waters in the State, or the restorative and maintenance dredging of waterways in the State that may not be officially designated as navigational waters by the Department of Environmental Protection but provide boat access from open water to residential dwelling units in coastal areas. The bill requires that no less than one quarter of the monies deposited in the account shall be allocated by the Department of Environmental Protection to the restorative and maintenance dredging of waterways in the State that provide boat access from open water to residential dwelling units in coastal areas. The bill further requires that the Department of Environmental Protection establish then annually update a list of eligible waterways in the State and a prioritized list of the dredging projects. The bill requires the Department of Environmental Protection to be as broad as possible in determining eligibility and to seek out and include recommendations from counties, municipalities, residential communities, or any task force concerning lagoon communities that may be established. Finally, the bill requires the Department of Environmental Protection to submit to the Governor and Legislature the eligible waterways and prioritized project lists, a list of the projects and their cost funded in the previous calendar year, and a list of the projects and their cost projected to be funded in the current calendar year. The "Port of New Jersey Revitalization, Dredging, Environmental Cleanup, Lake Restoration, and Delaware Bay Area Economic Development Bond Act of 1996," P.L.1996, c.70, provided $185,000,000 to the port region for dredging projects but the majority of $20,000,000 provided for non-port region dredging projects has been held for the Delaware River deepening project, leaving essentially no funding for any dredging projects outside of the port region. Each year, substantial sales tax revenues are collected on sales of boats, powered personal watercraft (jet skis), motor boat engines, boat trailers and other recreational boating and powered personal watercraft supplies and equipment, and the Legislature finds it appropriate to use these revenues for maintaining the waterways on which the vessels, supplies and equipment were sold to be used.

AI Summary

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Christopher Connors (R)*, 

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee (on 02/01/2018)