Comments Invited on West Virginia Voluntary Land Stewardship Program

Many clean ups of contaminated property do not end with soil or ground water contamination completely removed. It is simply too expensive to try to remediate to that last degree, and there may not be any corresponding environmental benefit. Often, the remediation depends on protections like putting parking lots down to prevent water infiltration, or placing language in deeds that prohibits use of the property for residences. If these are to be kept in place for many years, someone has to verify that they remain effective. That maybe difficult if the property owner goes bankrupt, or forgets about the restrictions.

Recognizing this growing problem, the DEP put together a work group to study how an independent body might be structured to guarantee that these "institutional and engineering controls" stay in place. My colleague Rob Lannan is on that work group and reports that

since February 2009, a select group of trade association representatives, representatives of the academic community, various state agencies, and individual companies have been meeting at the request of the DEP Secretary to discuss the feasibility of developing a voluntary land stewardship program designed to insure the continued integrity of long-term institutional controls and engineering controls at various types of remediated sites in West Virginia. Attached is draft report summarizing the Group’s work and providing certain preliminary recommendations regarding a path forward. We have been asked to provide comments on this document by Friday, July 30, 2010. Please contact Rob Lannan at 304-347-8346 or rel@ramlaw.com to provide any comments or with any questions you might have.

Thanks.

You can find the report here.