§ 6026.102. Declaration of policy
Purdon's Pennsylvania Statutes and Consolidated StatutesTitle 35 P.S. Health and Safety
35 P.S. § 6026.102
§ 6026.102. Declaration of policy
The General Assembly finds and declares as follows:
(1) The elimination of public health and environmental hazards on existing commercial and industrial land across this Commonwealth is vital to their use and reuse as sources of employment, housing, recreation and open-space areas. The reuse of industrial land is an important component of a sound land-use policy that will help prevent the needless development of prime farmland, open-space areas and natural areas and reduce public costs for installing new water, sewer and highway infrastructure.
(2) Incentives should be put in place to encourage responsible persons to voluntarily develop and implement cleanup plans without the use of taxpayer funds or the need for adversarial enforcement actions by the Department of Environmental Resources which frequently only serve to delay cleanups and increase their cost.
(4) It is necessary for the General Assembly to adopt a statute which sets environmental remediation standards to provide a uniform framework for cleanup decisions because few environmental statutes set cleanup standards and to avoid potentially conflicting and confusing environmental standards. The General Assembly also has a duty to implement the provisions of section 27 of Article I of the Constitution of Pennsylvania with respect to environmental remediation activities.
(5) It is necessary for the General Assembly to adopt a statute which provides a mechanism to establish cleanup standards without relieving a person from any liability for administrative, civil or criminal fines or penalties otherwise authorized by law and imposed as a result of illegal disposal of waste or for pollution of the land, air or waters of this Commonwealth on an identified site.
(6) Cleanup plans should be based on the actual risk that contamination on the site may pose to public health and the environment, taking into account its current and future use and the degree to which contamination can spread offsite and expose the public or the environment to risk, not on cleanup policies requiring every site in this Commonwealth to be returned to a pristine condition.
Credits
1995, May 19, P.L. 4, No. 2, § 102, effective in 60 days.
35 P.S. § 6026.102, PA ST 35 P.S. § 6026.102
Current through Act 10 of the 2024 Regular Session. Some statute sections may be more current, see credits for details.
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