The department shall take the following actions with regard to the department’s relationship with the parties who are performing the investigation and cleanup of the hazardous substance release site or taking a hazardous waste corrective action or response action:

(a)  Adopt procedures to improve communication, facilitate the exchange of ideas, eliminate surprises, and allow better financial planning by the department and potentially responsible parties, including a meet and confer process which includes, but is not limited to, all of the following:

(1)  An estimate of the cost of site remediation by the department for the next phase of the site remediation activity, including a list of estimated personnel labor rates.

(2)  An estimate of the total hours that the department expects the department staff to incur in the next phase of the site mitigation process, to the extent that the department can project its time and costs in advance. That estimate shall include the projected hours of the project manager, and the costs of public participation, legal counsel, and technical consultations.

(3)  A discussion of the schedule for the remediation action, including a thorough review of the services that the department expects to provide, deliverables, timeframes, expectations of both parties, a process for status reporting by both parties, systematic billing at least once every three months by the department, and an agreement on how the work plan will be modified, and how the costs will be estimated.

(b)  Develop a concise statement of its cost recovery policies and billing procedures, including dispute resolution procedures and the availability of program guidance and policies, which shall be distributed to all potentially responsible parties before any site remediation commences, as part of the meet and confer process.

(c)  Review all informal guidance documents for the cost recovery program, including fee bulletins, management memos, policies, and procedures, and review and update those documents, as appropriate.

(d)  Establish a procedure, when there is a change of project manager for a remediation action, to provide for a detailed status briefing to identify the highlights of past work and identify the current areas of agreement and disagreement among the parties.

(Added by Stats. 1996, Ch. 576, Sec. 3. Effective January 1, 1997.)