1.4 Direct Responsible Charge, Staffing Requirements & Operator Duties

1.4 Direct Responsible Charge, Staffing Requirements & Operator Duties

What Direct Responsible Charge Actually Means

Direct responsible charge (DRC) is defined in N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.2 as active, daily, on-site supervision, including operation and maintenance responsibilities, at a system. A licensed operator is the individual — holding any local title, designation, or job description — who is on-site a significant amount of time, although not necessarily full-time, who has active involvement in and responsibility for the operation, maintenance, and effectiveness of the system, and who holds a license equal or superior to the license required for that system.

The licensed operator is legally distinct from the system owner. The owner — a municipality, a municipal utilities authority, an investor-owned water company, or a private industrial firm — carries the institutional duty to fund and staff the facility. The licensed operator carries personal, non-delegable responsibility for operational decisions and regulatory compliance. Under N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.10(k), no person shall operate a system in violation of the Act, this chapter, or any other operating requirement, and that prohibition attaches to the individual, not the employer.

Core Operational Duties (N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.12)

1. Process control. Directing chemical feed dosages (coagulants, polymers, sodium hypochlorite, caustic soda, lime, orthophosphate), managing clarifier sludge blanket depth, setting filter backwash cycles, controlling aeration basin dissolved oxygen, and setting return activated sludge (RAS) and waste activated sludge (WAS) rates.
2. Sampling and laboratory oversight. Supervising grab and composite sampling, preservation (for example acidification and refrigeration at or below 6 degrees C), chain of custody, calibration of on-line analyzers (turbidimeters, free chlorine probes, pH meters), and review of certified laboratory results.
3. Regulatory reporting. Preparing and certifying monthly Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMRs) under NJPDES permits, monthly operating reports for treatment plants (Form BSDW-040 for groundwater plants, BSDW-041 for surface water and GWUDI plants, due no later than the 10th day following the month in which data was collected), Lead and Copper 90th-percentile forms, Water Quality Accountability Act certifications, and Consumer Confidence Reports.
4. Emergency notification. Immediately notifying NJDEP through the 24-hour Environmental Action Hotline (1-877-WARN-DEP / 1-877-927-6337) for events including E. coli or fecal coliform in finished drinking water, distribution pressure below 20 psi, filtration effluent turbidity exceedances, unpermitted sanitary sewer overflows or plant bypasses, and hazardous chemical releases such as a chlorine leak.

A separate monthly operating report is required for each treatment plant, even one not in operation for the entire month. The licensed operator does not have to personally record every daily result, but must sign and submit the report.

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Staffing Requirements — What the Rule Actually Says

This is a heavily tested and widely misremembered area. N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.10 sets no hours-per-week table for Class 1 and Class 2 systems. What it does say:

• N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.10(g): Class 3 and Class 4 treatment systems shall have the appropriate full-time licensed operator. In addition, a Class 4 treatment system should have a licensee possessing any valid treatment license within the appropriate system classification physically present during that portion of each 24-hour period when the licensed operator is not present.
• Automated-system exemption. The Department shall exempt class 3 and class 4 automated systems (as defined in Section 1.2) from the full-time operator requirement on written request by the owner or permittee. The request goes to the Division of Water Supply (P.O. Box 426, Trenton NJ 08625-0426) for T systems and the Division of Water Quality (P.O. Box 029, Trenton NJ 08625-0029) for S and N systems, and must include the facility name and address, a description of the facility including classification, the on-site contact person and phone number, and the basis for the exemption. An exemption specifies the special conditions and the minimum number of hours the licensed operator must be in attendance.
• N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.10(h): the Department reserves the right to limit the number of systems a licensed operator may operate and to specify the number of hours the operator must be in attendance at each system. There is no universal formula — hours are set system by system.
• More than ten VSWSs. A licensee who wants to be the licensed operator for more than 10 VSWSs must submit a written demonstration of ability to comply, listing every current and proposed VSWS with its PWSID, the hours needed at each, the approximate mileage from the licensee's primary residence, and a proposed monthly schedule including commute time. The Department considers the compliance history of each of that operator's VSWSs in evaluating the demonstration.

Coverage When the Licensed Operator Is Unavailable

N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.10(f): any time the licensed operator is unavailable to cover the system, the owner shall obtain the services of a licensee holding a license not more than one class lower than the classification required for the operation of the system for the duration of the unavailability.

Exam Trap Alert: The obligation runs to the owner, not to the departing operator, and the substitute may be one class lower — not "equal or higher." A T-4 plant may be covered by a T-3 licensee during the licensed operator's absence. There is no fixed statutory day limit on that arrangement in N.J.A.C. 7:10A-1.10(f); the Department controls duration through subsection (h) and through permit and exemption conditions.

Employment Change Notifications

• A licensed operator must notify the Examinations & Licensing Unit at least two weeks before changing positions or employment.
• The owner of a system employing a new licensed operator must notify the Examinations & Licensing Unit in writing within two weeks after the operator begins employment.
• Both notifications are made on Form DEP-065, "Licensed Operator in Charge Employment Notification Form," signed by both the licensed operator and the system owner or administrator.

Contract Operations

A municipality or utility without in-house licensed staff may retain a contract operations firm, but:

• Licenses are issued to individuals, never to corporate entities, so the contract must name the specific licensed individual serving as the licensed operator in charge;
• The DEP-065 employment notification must still be filed; and
• The arrangement must satisfy whatever attendance hours the Department has specified for that system under 7:10A-1.10(h) or under an automated-system exemption.

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Operational Logbooks & Record Retention

The operational logbook is the legal record of the utility. It is subject to unannounced NJDEP inspection and is admissible in administrative and criminal proceedings.

• Format: bound volumes with pre-numbered pages, or tamper-evident electronic systems with immutable audit trails.
• Daily entries: operator arrival and departure times; staff on duty; chemical deliveries; chemical usage and calculated feed dosages in mg/L; raw, process, and final parameters (pH, turbidity, chlorine residual, dissolved oxygen); pump run hours and totalized flow; filter headloss; equipment malfunctions, maintenance, and calibrations; and any deviation from standard operating procedures or any regulatory exceedance.
• Discipline: entries in ink, initialed by the licensed operator, recorded on the day the work occurs. Backdating entries or signing for days not worked is falsification of a public record.

Retention periods drawn from N.J.A.C. 7:10, N.J.A.C. 7:14A, and the federal drinking water regulations:

Exam Trap Alert: If an employer, council member, or commissioner directs a licensed operator to falsify a report, skip required bacteriological sampling, or bypass untreated sewage, the operator is not shielded by the employer's instruction. Tampering with public records is a third-degree crime under N.J.S.A. 2C:28-7, independent of any license action.