(A) The department is required to report each January fifteenth the current financial position of the fund to the General Assembly. In addition, the department shall include projected information that would enable the General Assembly to determine the solvency of the fund. At a minimum this must include a five-year budget projection. This report also must review and comment on the adequacy of the current program in resolving contamination problems at both operating and closed drycleaning facilities and wholesale supply facilities in this State.

(B) The department shall promulgate regulations to establish priorities for assessment and remediation at eligible contaminated sites. The department shall provide for the assessment and remediation of eligible contaminated sites consistent with these regulations and other provisions of this article.

(C) The department shall administer the assessment and remediation portions of the program through direct payments to contractors actually accomplishing the site assessment and remediation and not through reimbursement to drycleaning or wholesale supply facility owners, operators, or property owners. All services related to site assessment and remediation must be preapproved by the department before performance in order to receive payment for services rendered.

(D) The department may not expend more than five hundred fifty thousand dollars from the fund annually to pay for the costs at any one contaminated site for the activities described in Section 44-56-420(C).

(E) The department in its sole discretion may use other funds to pay the cost of a cleanup if the department declares a contaminated site is an emergency and if the committed money in the fund exceeds the current balance or the amount committed to a contaminated site has reached the maximum allowable expenditure as required in subsection (D). However, once the fund has an available uncommitted balance, the department's other sources of money that paid for the approved emergency cleanup may be reimbursed for the costs incurred through annual payments that may not exceed five percent of the total fund's average annual balance. The fund may not obligate itself for more than it is estimated to generate through surcharges and fees.

(F) Nothing in this article subjects the department to liability for any action that may be required of the owner, operator, or person by a private party or a local, state, or federal governmental entity.

(G) Nothing in this article may restrict the department from temporarily postponing rehabilitation work on a site in order to make funds available to perform work on another contaminated site with a higher priority.

HISTORY: 2013 Act No. 30, Section 1, eff May 21, 2013.

Editor's Note

Prior Laws: Former Section 44-56-430 was titled Environmental surcharge, and had the following history: 1995 Act No. 119, Section 1; 2004 Act No. 237, Section 4, eff May 24, 2004; 2009 Act No. 14, Section 1, eff May 6, 2009.