Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2204 – Hazardous waste sites; cleanup
Terms Used In Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2204
- Department: means the Department of Environmental Quality. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2004
- Facility: means a pollution source or any public or private property or facility where an activity is conducted which is required to be regulated under this Subtitle and which does or has the potential to do any of the following:
(a) Emit air contaminants into the atmosphere. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2004
- Hazardous waste: means any waste, or combination of wastes, which because of its quantity, concentration, physical, or chemical characteristics may cause or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible or incapacitating reversible illness, or pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, disposed of, or otherwise managed. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2173
- Person: means any individual, municipality, public or private corporation, partnership, firm, the United States Government, and any agent or subdivision thereof or any other juridical person, which shall include, but not be limited to, trusts, joint stock companies, associations, the state of Louisiana, political subdivisions of the state of Louisiana, commissions, and interstate bodies. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2004
- Secretary: means the secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2004
- Violation: means a failure to comply with the requirements of this Subtitle, the rules issued under this Subtitle, and conditions of permits under this Subtitle. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2004
- Waste: means any garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility, and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, or agricultural operations, and from community activities, but does not include solid or dissolved material in domestic sewage, or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or industrial discharges which are point sources subject to permits under La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 30:2173
A.(1) Whenever any owner, operator, or responsible person of any site obtains information that indicates hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents are leaching, spilling, discharging, or otherwise moving in, into, within, or on any land, subsurface strata, water, or air, such person shall notify the department in accordance with regulations to be adopted. This notification requirement shall apply to leaching, spilling, discharging, or moving of hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents occurring hereafter although the hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents were heretofore present at the site.
(2) Upon receipt of the information required to be provided in Paragraph A(1) of this Section, the secretary may order any owner, operator, or responsible person to test, monitor, and analyze to ascertain the nature and extent of any hazard and require such owner, operator, or responsible person to contain, abate, or clean up the site, or the secretary may undertake such activities and order an investigation of the site, take samples to be analyzed by the department, or may expend monies from the Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup Fund for these purposes. Any person ordered by the secretary to undertake certain actions as provided herein on property outside a facility‘s boundary shall either obtain permission from the owner of the property to perform such required actions or, if unable to obtain the owner’s permission, request the secretary to order access to the property for the purpose of performing such required actions. In those cases where the secretary orders any owner, operator, or responsible person to test, monitor, and analyze to ascertain the nature and extent of such hazard, the order shall require the person to whom such order is issued to submit to the secretary within thirty days from the issuance of such order a proposal for carrying out the required monitoring, testing, and analysis.
(3) The goal of such regulations is to eliminate those releases that may reasonably pose a threat to human health or the environment and to remediate contaminated media, taking into consideration current and expected uses.
B. Any failure or refusal by an owner or operator or responsible person to undertake such action as ordered by the secretary to test, monitor, analyze, contain, abate, or clean up a hazardous waste site shall be a violation of this Subtitle, and the secretary, in order to prevent damage to the public health and environment, may immediately declare the site abandoned, notwithstanding the provisions of La. Rev. Stat. 30:2225 or commence appropriate action or initiate proceedings under La. Rev. Stat. 30:2025, including the recovery of penalties, revocation of any permit, closure of the site, or any combination thereof.
C. A “hazardous waste site” as used in this Section includes the entire contaminated area and may extend beyond a facility’s boundary.
D. Repealed by Acts 1992, No. 669, §2.
Added by Acts 1980, No. 194, §17. Amended by Acts 1981, No. 702, §2, eff. July 23, 1981; Acts 1982, No. 799, §1, eff. Aug. 4, 1982; Acts 1983, No. 97, §1, eff. Feb. 1, 1984; Acts 1983, No. 459, §1, eff. July 6, 1983; Acts 1984, No. 674, §1; Acts 1986, No. 329, §1, eff. June 30, 1986; Acts 1991, No. 666, §1, eff. July 17, 1991; Acts 1992, No. 122, §1; Acts 1992, No. 669, §2; Acts 1999, No. 303, §1, eff. June 14, 1999.