EPA Region 3, West Virginia Issue Memorandum of Agreement on Remediation Procedures

There is a confusing mishmash of federal and state programs that govern the clean up of polluted property. Speaking generally, RCRA regulates certain sites that have been contaminated by solid and hazardous wastes, and CERCLA (Superfund) deals with hazardous substance contamination. "Hazardous substance" is a term that generally includes hazardous wastes, but is somewhat broader - yet it doesn't include petroleum products. The standards for clean up are different between these two programs, and that doesn't even include other federal programs, like TSCA, which pertains to PCBs and a few other substances. Add to that separate state programs, which set remediation levels that aren't always consistent with the feds, and you have a mess.

EPA and the states are well aware of these problems, and have tried for years to reach accommodations that would allow more consistency among the programs. (This is especially true for state voluntary remediation programs, where property owners remediate to target levels in return for agreement from the state that no further clean up will be required of them in the future.) The EPA/State agreements are usually memorialized by memoranda of agreement or memoranda of understanding, which describe the respective responsibilities of the federal and state agencies, and explain when remediation under one program will be deemed sufficient under another.

Toward that end, EPA Region 3 and the West Virginia DEP finalized a memorandum of agreement on a how they will coordinate remediation at contaminated sites in West Virginia. It should be of interest to anyone interested in remediating property in the state.


This Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is entered into between the Regional Administrator,
United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), Region III and the Cabinet
Secretary, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) to support and
strengthen efforts to achieve cleanups that are protective of human health and welfare and the environment through the appropriate use of the State voluntary remediation program. This MOA is intended to help property owners, developers, consultants, public officials, and the general public to understand the roles and responsibilities of U.S. EPA and WVDEP and the potential utilization of the WVDEP Voluntary Remediation Program (VRP) to assess and address
environmental contamination.