West Virginia Code 22-22-19 – Establishing and limiting the responsibilities of remediation contractors
(a) A person who is engaged in the business of remediation contractor under this article is not responsible for a release or threatened release of contaminants at the site described in the voluntary remediation agreement for work properly performed pursuant to the agreement.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 22-22-19
- 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
- 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
- Voluntary remediation: means a series of measures that may be self-initiated by a person to identify and address potential sources of contamination of property and to establish that the property complies with applicable remediation standards. See West Virginia Code 22-22-2
(b) A person who is engaged in the business of remediation contractor under this article is not liable for any harm, damage or injury caused by a release of a contaminant which occurred prior to the contractor undertaking work at the site.
(c) Limitation of liability, pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section does not apply to a release or threatened release of contaminants at the site described in the voluntary remediation agreement that is directly caused by an act or omission which constitutes gross negligence or by the willful misconduct of the remediation contractor.
(d) A remediation contractor is not required to obtain a permit for remediation activities, if a permit is required under article five, eleven, fifteen or eighteen of this chapter. However, an owner or operator of the site to be remediated is not relieved of the permit requirements, if any, for remediation activities undertaken at the site. A remediation contractor must comply with all applicable state and federal laws in the transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of contaminants generated as a consequence of the remediation activities.
(e) A remediation contractor is not a "generator" for the purposes of the generator assessments imposed pursuant to article twenty of this chapter.