a. Upon review of the Extraordinarily Hazardous Substance Accident Risk Assessment for each facility, the department shall, if appropriate, order the owner or operator of the facility to undertake an extraordinarily hazardous substance risk reduction plan. The order shall identify the risk or risks which must, within the limits of practicability and feasibility, be abated and a reasonable timetable for implementation of the plan. The department shall, by regulation, establish criteria or quantitative standards for determining risk, which criteria and standards shall reflect, among other factors, the size of the potentially exposed population and the gravity of consequences. The commissioner may order those operations posing the identified risk or risks that have not been abated on schedule to cease until the risk reduction plan has been implemented.

b. The owner of a facility who is aggrieved by an order issued pursuant to subsection a. of this section may petition the commissioner for a review of the matter, pursuant to which he shall provide the commissioner with all data and documents which he believes demonstrate that the order is unwarranted. If the commissioner, after review, affirms the initial order, he shall, at the request of the aggrieved owner, transmit all relevant materials and documents on the matter to the Office of Administrative Law, which shall conduct a hearing on the order pursuant to the provisions of P.L. 1978, c. 67 (C. 52:14F-1 et seq.). This hearing shall be an adjudicatory proceeding, and shall be conducted as a contested case pursuant to the “Administrative Procedure Act,” P.L. 1968, c. 410 (C. 52:14B-1 et seq.). The department and the aggrieved owner of the facility shall be deemed parties in interest in the proceeding. Intervention in this hearing by any other person shall be as provided in the “Administrative Procedure Act.” After review of the record of the adjudicatory proceeding and the recommendation of the administrative law judge, the commissioner shall affirm or modify his order. The decision of the commissioner shall constitute final agency action on the matter, and shall be subject only to judicial review as provided in the Rules of Court. During the pendency of the review and the hearing, the timetable for compliance with the order giving rise to the proceeding shall be suspended.

L. 1985, c. 403, s. 8, eff. Jan. 8, 1986.