Contamination Assessments are conducted in coordination with the state and local environmental agencies. The purpose is to define the extent of contamination and provide recommendations for cleanup and remedial action . The successful completion of these activities results in issuance by the regulatory agency of the "No Further Action", which is commonly referred as the "Clean Bill of Health".
Petroleum
Several programs which began in the 1980's provided state-funding for cleanup. The programs, which are administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), were known as EDI, Reimbursement, Abandoned Tanks Restoration Program, etc. and a limited number of funds were available each quarter on a first come-first serve basis.
The state has since adopted a priority-based funding system by which all facilities eligible for state-funded cleanup were ranked according to a priority score based on factors such as threats to public health or the environment, length of time of eligibility, etc. Presently, state-funded cleanup is only conducted when the funds are available for a particular range of priority scores. For example, funds are currently available for facilities with a score of 40 and above. The FDEP can not ascertain at this time how long it will take for cleanup funds to be available for the remaining facilities with lower numbers. It can range from several months to several years or longer. Often, in order to ensure a transaction, a property owner or interested party can conduct contamination assessment and cleanup activities prior to the funds becoming available, but any costs associated with these activities will not borne by the state of Florida.
Application for Eligibility in this program ended in December 1998. Any contaminated dry cleaning facilities that had not submitted a complete application by that time will not be eligible for state-funding. There are also other exceptions including uniform rental businesses and federally-owned dry cleaning facilities (i.e. dry cleaning facility run by a federal prison).The same statute also provided some tax breaks for eligible facilities to conduct cleanup on their own, and absolved off-site property owners from any liability from contamination on their property caused by a discharge from an eligible dry cleaner. As with the state-funded petroleum cleanup programs, the Dry Cleaning Solvent Cleanup Program would absolve a buyer or lender from liability and the responsibility of cleanup of discharges from eligible facilities.
Empire Environmental conducts contamination assessments and cleanup and works with qualified well drillers, tank contractors and laboratories.
The state has since adopted a priority-based funding system by which all facilities eligible for state-funded cleanup were ranked according to a priority score based on factors such as threats to public health or the environment, length of time of eligibility, etc. Presently, state-funded cleanup is only conducted when the funds are available for a particular range of priority scores. For example, funds are currently available for facilities with a score of 40 and above. The FDEP can not ascertain at this time how long it will take for cleanup funds to be available for the remaining facilities with lower numbers. It can range from several months to several years or longer. Often, in order to ensure a transaction, a property owner or interested party can conduct contamination assessment and cleanup activities prior to the funds becoming available, but any costs associated with these activities will not borne by the state of Florida.
Dry Cleaning
The state-funded program is called the Dry Cleaning Solvent Cleanup Program and is designed to absorb the substantial costs of cleanup of discharges of dry cleaning solvents which can easily exceed $100,000.00. This program also ranks eligible facilities in order of priority. All assessment and cleanup tasks will be paid for by the state of Florida with the exception of a deductible ranging from $1,000.00 to $10,000.00.
