on Right to Regulate Development along Delaware River

(TRENTON) –Acting Governor Richard J. Codey has directed Attorney General Peter C. Harvey to file suit against the State of Delaware tomorrow in the United States Supreme Court, to uphold New Jersey’s right to regulate development projects on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River. 

“My counterpart in Delaware has rejected our efforts to settle this amicably,” Codey said. “The plain fact is that the State of Delaware does not have jurisdiction over any projects on New Jersey’s shoreline. Delaware has never controlled development on our shore, and will not start doing so now.”

The State of Delaware, claiming it has jurisdiction over a portion of New Jersey’s side of the river, in March denied a permit to Crown Landing LLC for the construction of a pier necessary to serve a liquefied natural gas facility in Logan Township. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities strongly supports the LNG project as a means to increase the vital supply of natural gas to New Jersey.

New Jersey’s boundary with Delaware runs along the middle of the main shipping channel in the Delaware River and Bay – except for the “Twelve-Mile Circle” of New Castle. In that circle, the states’ boundary is at the low-water mark on New Jersey’s shore.

But under a compact between the two states signed in 1905, Delaware agreed that New Jersey has exclusive riparian jurisdiction over projects on the New Jersey side of the river including within the Twelve-Mile Circle.

In its court filing scheduled for tomorrow, New Jersey is asking the Supreme Court to supplement a 1935 boundary decree to make clear that the 1905 compact gives New Jersey the right to control projects on New Jersey’s side of the river within the Twelve-Mile circle, free of regulation by Delaware. New Jersey is asking the Court to render a decision in the Court’s next term, which concludes at the end of June 2006.