DEP back in full force
Due to the Covid pandemic, the DEP partially shut down operations in March. They returned to full operations in July, but due to the partial shut down, there were extended delays in processing backflow test reports and issuing violations.
At the present time, we are experiencing delays of up to three months on backflow test approvals. The DEP are slowly making progress. From the rate they are going, we expect things to go back to normal in February or March of 2021.
This return to full operations has also seen an increase in backflow violations for late testing. It appears that they first focused on “failure to test” violations with existing backflows in July and have recently started issuing “failure to install” backflow device violations in late October.
