75-10-701. Definitions. As used in this part, unless the context requires otherwise, the following definitions apply:

Ask a legal question, get an answer ASAP!
Click here to chat with a lawyer about your rights.

(1)”Department” means the department of environmental quality provided for in 2-15-3501.

(2)”Director” means the director of the department.

(3)”Environment” means any surface water, ground water, drinking water supply, land surface or subsurface strata, or ambient air within the state of Montana or under the jurisdiction of the state of Montana.

(4)(a) “Facility” means:

(i)any building, structure, installation, equipment, pipe or pipeline (including any pipe into a sewer or publicly owned treatment works), well, pit, pond, lagoon, impoundment, ditch, landfill, storage container, motor vehicle, rolling stock, or aircraft; or

(ii)any site or area where a hazardous or deleterious substance has been deposited, stored, disposed of, placed, or otherwise come to be located.

(b)The term does not include any consumer product in consumer use.

(5)”Fiduciary” means a trustee, executor, administrator, personal representative, custodian, conservator, guardian, or receiver acting or holding property for the exclusive benefit of another person. The term does not include:

(a)a person who has previously owned or operated the property in a nonfiduciary capacity; or

(b)a person acting as fiduciary with respect to a trust or other fiduciary estate that has no objectively reasonable or substantial purpose apart from avoidance of or limitation of liability under this part. For the purposes of 75-10-715(9), the term does not include the state, a state agency, or a political subdivision of the state acting as trustee of natural resources within the state of Montana.

(6)”Foreclosure” means acquisition of title to property through foreclosure, purchase at foreclosure sale, assignment or acquisition of title in lieu of foreclosure, repossession in the case of a lease financing transaction, or acquisition of a right to title or other agreement in full or partial settlement of a loan obligation.

(7)”Fund” means the environmental quality protection fund established in 75-10-704.

(8)”Hazardous or deleterious substance” means a substance that because of its quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical, or infectious characteristics may pose an imminent and substantial threat to public health, safety, or welfare or the environment and is:

(a)a substance that is defined as a hazardous substance by section 101(14) of the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. § 9601(14);

(b)a substance identified by the administrator of the United States environmental protection agency as a hazardous substance pursuant to section 102 of CERCLA, 42 U.S.C. § 9602;

(c)a substance that is defined as a hazardous waste pursuant to section 1004(5) of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 6903(5), including a substance listed or identified in 40 CFR 261; or

(d)any petroleum product.

(9)”Household” means single and multiple residences, hotels and motels, bunkhouses, ranger stations, crew quarters, campgrounds, picnic grounds, day-use recreational areas, or similar structures or areas.

(10)”Household refuse” means garbage, trash, and sanitary wastes in septic tanks that are derived from a household.

(11)”Institutional control” means a restriction on the use of real property that mitigates the risk posed to public health, safety, and welfare and the environment. Institutional controls include but are not limited to:

(a)deed restrictions;

(b)easements;

(c)reservations;

(d)covenants, either restrictive or affirmative; and

(e)other mechanisms or physical restrictions for controlling present and future land use, including controlled ground water areas, that are placed upon real property to mitigate the risk to public health, safety, and welfare and the environment.

(12)”Natural resources” means land, fish, wildlife, biota, air, surface water, ground water, drinking water supplies, and any other resources within the state of Montana owned, managed, held in trust, or otherwise controlled by or appertaining to the state of Montana or a political subdivision of the state.

(13)”Orphan share” means the percentage share of remedial action costs for a facility that is attributable, under the procedures in 75-10-742 through 75-10-751, to identified but bankrupt or defunct persons who are not an affiliate of any viable person, unless affiliated by stock ownership.

(14)”Orphan share fund” means the fund for the orphan share account established in 75-10-743.

(15)(a) “Owns or operates” means owning, leasing, operating, managing activities at, or exercising control over the operation of a facility.

(b)The term does not include holding the indicia of ownership of a facility primarily to protect a security interest in the facility or other location unless the holder has participated in the management of the facility. The term does not apply to the state or a local government that acquired ownership or control through bankruptcy, tax delinquency, abandonment, lien foreclosure, or other circumstances in which the government acquires title by virtue of its function as sovereign, unless the state or local government has caused or contributed to the release or threatened release of a hazardous or deleterious substance from the facility. The term also does not include the owner or operator of the Milltown dam licensed under part 1 of the Federal Power Act (FERC license No. 2543-004) if a hazardous or deleterious substance has been released into the environment upstream of the dam and has subsequently come to be located in the reservoir created by the dam unless the owner or operator is a person who would otherwise be liable for a release or threatened release under 75-10-715(1).

(16)”Person” means an individual, trust, firm, joint-stock company, joint venture, consortium, commercial entity, partnership, association, corporation, commission, state or state agency, political subdivision of the state, interstate body, or the federal government, including a federal agency.

(17)”Petroleum product” includes gasoline, crude oil (except for crude oil at production facilities subject to regulation under Title 82), fuel oil, diesel oil or fuel, lubricating oil, oil sludge or refuse, and any other petroleum-related product or waste or fraction of the product or waste that is liquid at standard conditions of temperature and pressure (60 degrees F and 14.7 pounds per square inch absolute).

(18)”Reasonably anticipated future uses” means likely future land or resource uses that take into consideration:

(a)local land and resource use regulations, ordinances, restrictions, or covenants;

(b)historical and anticipated uses of the facility;

(c)patterns of development in the immediate area; and

(d)relevant indications of anticipated land use from the owner of the facility and local planning officials.

(19)”Release” means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing of a hazardous or deleterious substance directly into the environment (including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles containing any hazardous or deleterious substance), but excludes releases confined to the indoor workplace environment, the use of pesticides as defined in 80-8-102 when they are applied in accordance with approved federal and state labels, and the use of commercial fertilizers, as defined in 80-10-101, when applied as part of accepted agricultural practice.

(20)”Remedial action” includes all notification, investigation, administration, monitoring, cleanup, restoration, mitigation, abatement, removal, replacement, acquisition, enforcement, legal action, health studies, feasibility studies, and other actions necessary or appropriate to respond to a release or threatened release.

(21)”Remedial action contract” means a written contract or agreement entered into by a remedial action contractor with the state, or with a potentially liable person acting pursuant to an order or request issued by the department, the United States, or any federal agency, to provide a remedial action with respect to a release or threatened release of a hazardous or deleterious substance.

(22)”Remedial action contractor” means:

(a)any person who enters into and is carrying out a remedial action contract; or

(b)any person who is retained or hired by a person described in subsection (22)(a) to provide services relating to a remedial action.

(23)”Remedial action costs” means reasonable costs that are attributable to or associated with a remedial action at a facility, including but not limited to the costs of administration, investigation, legal or enforcement activities, contracts, feasibility studies, or health studies.