Developer Lesson 5: It’s possible for you to recover remediation costs

Did you know you can buy polluted land and pursue the polluter for your clean-up costs? It’s true. That is the way BC law works. If you clean up polluted land, you have the right to pursue not only the polluter or polluters, but potentially others as well, for the costs you reasonably incur to clean it up. This is called a ‘cost recovery action,’ and under BC law this statutory action has teeth.

The principle in BC is simple.  Polluters should be paying for the clean up of contaminated lands, and those who go through the time and expense of remediation should have a statutory pathway to pursue those polluters in the most effective and streamlined way possible.  The legislature in BC has done this through the EMA’s ‘cost recovery action’ provision.

Have questions about how you can take on a remediation – and bill it back to the polluter? Contact Richard Bereti ([email protected]) or Una Radoja ([email protected]).