West Virginia Code 22-22-14 – Land-use covenant; criminal penalties
(a) The director shall establish by rule, criteria for deed recordation of land-use covenants and containing all necessary deed restrictions. The director shall cause all land-use covenants to appear in the chain of title by deed to be properly recorded in the office of the county clerk where the remediation site is located. If institutional and engineering controls are used, in whole or in part, to achieve a remediation standard, the director shall direct that a land-use covenant be applied. The covenant shall include whether residential or nonresidential exposure factors were used to comply with the site-specific standard. The covenant shall contain a provision relieving the person who undertook the remediation and subsequent successors and assigns from all civil liability to the state as provided under this article and shall remain effective as long as the property complies with the applicable standards in effect at the time the covenant was issued.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 22-22-14
- Controls: means to apply engineering measures, such as capping or treatment, or institutional measures, such as deed restrictions, to contaminated sites. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
- Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
- Director: means the director of the Division of Environmental Protection or such other person to whom the director has delegated authority or duties pursuant to this article. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Land-use covenant: means a document or deed restriction issued by the director on remediated sites which have attained and demonstrate continuing compliance with site-specific standards for any contaminants at the site. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Nonresidential property: means any real property on which commercial, industrial, manufacturing or any other activity is done to further the development, manufacturing or distribution of goods and services, intermediate and final business activities, research and development, warehousing, shipping, transport, remanufacturing, stockpiling of raw materials, storage, repair and maintenance of commercial machinery and equipment, and solid waste management. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
- Office: means any office, division, board, agency, unit, organizational entity or component thereof within the Department of Environmental Protection. See West Virginia Code 22-1-2
- 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
- Property: means any parcel of real property, and any improvements thereof. 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
- Residential: means any real property or portion thereof which is designed for the housing of human beings and does not meet the definition of "nonresidential" property set forth above. 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
- State: when applied to a part of the United States and not restricted by the context, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories, and the words "United States" also include the said district and territories. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
- whoever: includes corporations, societies, associations and partnerships, and other similar legal business organizations. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
(b) Whoever knowingly violates a land-use covenant by converting nonresidential property to residential property is guilty of a felony, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $25,000, imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.