COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 602
(By Senators Wooton, Redd, Burnette, Mitchell, Rowe and Hunter)
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[Originating in the Committee on Natural Resources;
reported February 27, 2002.]
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A BILL to amend article eleven, chapter twenty-two of the code of
West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section
twenty-nine, relating to authorizing the department of
environmental protection to collect costs incurred for
emergency response to accidental discharge or spill of
pollution that may enter into state waters; and authorizing
the department to collect cleanup costs for authorized third
parties.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article eleven, chapter twenty-two of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be
amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section
twenty-nine, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 11. WATER POLLUTION CONTROL ACT.
§
22-11-29. Reimbursement of response costs.
(a) The secretary is authorized to recover through civil
action or cooperative agreements with responsible persons, the
actual, reasonable and necessary amounts expended by the department
for the purpose of responding to, evaluating or overseeing a
response to a spill or accidental discharge of any pollutant that
enters the waters of the state, or that requires measures to be
taken to prevent a spill or accidental discharge of any pollutant
from entering the waters of the state. The department shall
provide the responsible party an itemized invoice of the
expenditures that the department seeks to recover.
(b) All monies recovered by the secretary shall be deposited
into the water quality management fund created in section ten of
this article and shall be used for future responses to, evaluation
or oversight of a response to a spill or accidental discharge of
any pollutant that enters the waters of the state, or that requires
measures to be taken to prevent a spill or accidental discharge of
any pollutant from entering the waters of the state.
(c) The amounts that may be collected by the secretary
pursuant to subsection (a) of this section may include any
reasonable and necessary costs incurred by a third party who is not
a responsible party and who, with the prior authorization of the
secretary or the chief inspector, responds to a spill or accidental
discharge that enters or threatens to enter the waters of the
state. The department shall not be responsible for or be held
liable for costs incurred by such third party responder;
(d) Any civil action instituted pursuant to this section may be brought in either Kanawha County or the county in which the
spill or accidental discharge occurs or the county in which the
response occurred.
Note: This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.