§2204. Hazardous waste sites; cleanup

A.(1) Whenever any owner, operator, or responsible person of any site obtains information that indicates hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents are leaching, spilling, discharging, or otherwise moving in, into, within, or on any land, subsurface strata, water, or air, such person shall notify the department in accordance with regulations to be adopted. This notification requirement shall apply to leaching, spilling, discharging, or moving of hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents occurring hereafter although the hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents were heretofore present at the site.

(2) Upon receipt of the information required to be provided in Paragraph A(1) of this Section, the secretary may order any owner, operator, or responsible person to test, monitor, and analyze to ascertain the nature and extent of any hazard and require such owner, operator, or responsible person to contain, abate, or clean up the site, or the secretary may undertake such activities and order an investigation of the site, take samples to be analyzed by the department, or may expend monies from the Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup Fund for these purposes. Any person ordered by the secretary to undertake certain actions as provided herein on property outside a facility's boundary shall either obtain permission from the owner of the property to perform such required actions or, if unable to obtain the owner's permission, request the secretary to order access to the property for the purpose of performing such required actions. In those cases where the secretary orders any owner, operator, or responsible person to test, monitor, and analyze to ascertain the nature and extent of such hazard, the order shall require the person to whom such order is issued to submit to the secretary within thirty days from the issuance of such order a proposal for carrying out the required monitoring, testing, and analysis.

(3) The goal of such regulations is to eliminate those releases that may reasonably pose a threat to human health or the environment and to remediate contaminated media, taking into consideration current and expected uses.

B. Any failure or refusal by an owner or operator or responsible person to undertake such action as ordered by the secretary to test, monitor, analyze, contain, abate, or clean up a hazardous waste site shall be a violation of this Subtitle, and the secretary, in order to prevent damage to the public health and environment, may immediately declare the site abandoned, notwithstanding the provisions of R.S. 30:2225 or commence appropriate action or initiate proceedings under R.S. 30:2025, including the recovery of penalties, revocation of any permit, closure of the site, or any combination thereof.

C. A "hazardous waste site" as used in this Section includes the entire contaminated area and may extend beyond a facility's boundary.

D. Repealed by Acts 1992, No. 669, §2.

Added by Acts 1980, No. 194, §17. Amended by Acts 1981, No. 702, §2, eff. July 23, 1981; Acts 1982, No. 799, §1, eff. Aug. 4, 1982; Acts 1983, No. 97, §1, eff. Feb. 1, 1984; Acts 1983, No. 459, §1, eff. July 6, 1983; Acts 1984, No. 674, §1; Acts 1986, No. 329, §1, eff. June 30, 1986; Acts 1991, No. 666, §1, eff. July 17, 1991; Acts 1992, No. 122, §1; Acts 1992, No. 669, §2; Acts 1999, No. 303, §1, eff. June 14, 1999.