What is the Voluntary Cleanup Program?

New York established its Voluntary Cleanup Program to address the environmental, legal and financial barriers that often hinder the redevelopment and reuse of contaminated properties. The Voluntary Cleanup Program was developed to enhance private sector cleanup of brownfields by enabling businesses and financial institutions to remediate sites using private rather than public funds, and to reduce the development pressures on "greenfield" sites.

Resources Available for Community Redevelopment

New York's Voluntary Cleanup Program is a cooperative approach among the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), lenders, developers and prospective purchasers to investigate and/or remediate contaminated sites and return these sites to productive use. Under the Voluntary Cleanup Program, a volunteer can enter into an agreement to investigate a site, remediate a site, or investigate and remediate a site. The volunteer agrees to remediate the site to a level which is protective of public health and the environment for the present or intended use of the property. Investigation and remediation is carried out under the oversight of DEC and the New York State Department of Health (DOH) and, in most instances, the volunteer pays a portion of the State's oversight costs. When the volunteer completes work, the State provides a release from State liability for the work done and the contaminants addressed, with standard reservations.

Eligibility

• The Voluntary Cleanup Program covers any contaminated property in the State for which the Federal Government does not have lead responsibility.
• The present owner of a site, having purchased the property in an already contaminated condition and not otherwise a Potentially Responsible Party (PRP), is not considered a PRP in the Voluntary Cleanup Program.
• Eligible participants are anyone other than a PRP for a property that is: Class 1 or 2 on the New York State Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites; a Treatment, Storage or Disposal Facility (TSDF) subject to Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) corrective action; a TSDF operating under interim RCRA status; or subject to other enforcement action requiring the PRP to remove or remediate a hazardous substance.
• The Department will use the information provided on the VCP application form to determine an applicant's eligibility for participation in the Program. It also serves as an initial summary of the site conditions.

Liability Release

• Once the cleanup level is met, the Department issues a letter declaring that the Department agrees that the volunteer has cleaned the site to the previously agreed-upon cleanup level and that, barring an event triggering a reopener, the Department does not contemplate further action will need to be taken at the site.
• It also releases the volunteer from further remediation liability for past contamination, subject to reopeners.
• Non-PRP volunteers also receive a release that covers natural resource damages.
• All of the volunteer's successors and assigns (except the site's PRPs) benefit from the release given to the volunteer.
• The Department's release binds only itself, and does not bind private parties harmed, does not bind the State's Attorney General, and does not bind the USEPA.
• The extent of the investigation and remediation determines the breadth, and hence the value, of the release. The more comprehensive the remedial response, the more comprehensive the release.

Reopeners

Reopeners affect only the volunteer, successor, or assign which owns or operates the property at the time of the reopening, and thereafter. Reopeners are as follows:

• the response action is not sufficiently protective to allow the contemplated use
• the volunteer, or its successor, changes the site's use to a use requiring a lower level of residual contamination
• the volunteer fraudulently obtains the release
• environmental conditions present at the site at the time the Voluntary Cleanup Agreement was executed were unknown to the DEC at such time

Loans for Environmental Improvements

Under its Industrial Finance Program (IFP), the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) can provide private industries with conduit financing for environmental improvement projects in four areas: hazardous waste facilities, solid waste facilities, drinking water facilities, and sewage treatment facilities. This conduit financing is based on the underlying credit of the borrower and is feasible for loans in the amount of $1.5 million or more.

How to Apply

Get a copy of the application form and follow the instructions.

Call For More Information

Brownfields and Voluntary Cleanup Section
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-7010
(518) 402-9764