West Virginia Code 22-22-18 – Environmental liability protection
(a) Any person demonstrating compliance with the applicable standards established in section three of this article, whether by remediation or where the site assessment shows that the contamination at the site meets applicable standards, shall be relieved of further liability for the remediation of the site under this chapter. Contamination identified in the remediation agreement submitted to and approved by the division shall not be subject to citizen suits or contribution actions. The protection from further remediation liability provided by this article applies to the following persons:
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 22-22-18
- contamination: means any man made or man induced alteration of the chemical, physical or biological integrity of soils, sediments, air and surface water or groundwater resulting from activities regulated under this article, in excess of applicable standards in this chapter, including any hazardous substance, petroleum, or natural gas. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Division: means the Division of Environmental Protection of the State of West Virginia. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. Source: OCC
- Licensed remediation specialist: means a person certified by the director pursuant to rules adopted under section three of this article as qualified to perform professional services and to supervise the remediation of contaminated sites. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Natural gas: means natural gas, natural gas liquids, liquefied natural gas, coalbed methane, synthetic gas usable for fuel or mixtures of natural gas and synthetic gas. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Operator: means the person responsible for the overall operation of a facility site. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Owner: means any person owning or holding legal or equitable title or possessory interest in property or, where title or control of property was conveyed due to bankruptcy, foreclosure, tax delinquency, abandonment, or similar means to this state or a political subdivision of this state, or any person who owned the property before the conveyance. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Person: means any public or private corporation, institution, association, firm or company organized or existing under the laws of this or any other state or country. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Release: means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, migrating, dumping or disposing of any contaminant or regulated substance into the environment, including, without limitation, the abandonment or improper discarding of barrels, containers or any other closed receptacle containing any contaminant. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Remediation: means to cleanup, mitigate, correct, abate, minimize, eliminate, control and contain or prevent a release of a contaminant into the environment in order to protect the present or future public health, safety, welfare, or the environment, including preliminary actions to study or assess the release. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Remediation contractor: means any person who enters into and is carrying out a contract to cleanup, remediate, respond to or remove a release or threatened release of a contaminant and includes any person who the contractor retained or hired to provide services under a remediation contract. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Site: means any property or portion thereof which contains or may contain contaminants and is eligible for remediation as provided under this article. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
(1) The current or future owner or operator of the site, including development authorities and fiduciaries who participated in the remediation of the site;
(2) A person who develops or otherwise occupies the site;
(3) A successor or assign of any person to whom the liability protection applies;
(4) A public utility, as defined in section two, article one, chapter twenty-four of this code, and for the purpose of this article, a utility engaged in the storage and transportation of natural gas, to the extent the public utility performs activities on the site;
(5) A remediation contractor;
(6) A licensed remediation specialist; and
(7) A lender or developer who engages in the routine practices of commercial lending, including, but not limited to, providing financial services, holding of security interests, workout practices, foreclosure or the recovery of funds from the sale of a site.
(b) A person shall not be considered a person responsible for a release or a threatened release of contaminants simply by virtue of conducting or having a site assessment conducted. Nothing in this section relieves a person of any liability for failure to exercise due diligence in performing a site assessment.