Before you apply

How the VCP process works

After we accept your application to the VCP, we assign a cleanup project manager to your project as your primary point of contact. You'll provide your cleanup project manager with cleanup reports and documents. After submitting documentation with a completed request for opinion form, our cleanup project manager will review the documentation and issue a written opinion on whether your cleanup or proposed cleanup meets MTCA requirements.

Please note that we receive a higher volume of document submissions during the fall and winter. During this busy time, it may take us a bit longer to respond to requests. We will work hard to get back to you as quickly as possible.

Our opinions contain written technical assistance. They explain what you need to do to meet state cleanup requirements. They may help determine the scope of a site investigation and cleanup.

When you demonstrate your site meets all cleanup requirements, we issue a No Further Action opinion, remove your site from our Contaminated Sites List, and update the site status in our statewide database.

Limitations

• Completing a cleanup through the VCP does not settle liability with the state.

• The VCP does not provide oversight or approval for cleanups. The VCP is limited to providing opinions on whether a cleanup meets legal requirements, and what additional work may be necessary.

• Participating in the VCP doesn't ensure your cleanup is “substantially equivalent” to an Ecology-supervised cleanup. A court determination of substantial equivalence is required to recover cleanup costs from a liable party.

However, our No Further Action opinions normally provide lenders and other government agencies the information they need to determine whether the cleanup protects people and other living things.

Cost

Applying to the Standard VCP process is free. However, we do charge an hourly rate billed monthly for the time we spend providing services under the VCP process.

If you have a low-risk site that meets specific criteria, you might be able to use a model remedy for your cleanup. For qualifying model remedy cleanups, we provide up to two free reviews and opinions of submitted documents after cleanup is completed.

Eligibility for the VCP

Your cleanup may be eligible to apply to the VCP if:

• The contamination affects only soil, groundwater, or indoor air and generally doesn't affect surface water or sediment. Note: We may allow some sediment cleanup projects into VCP, depending on complexity and staff availability (see Policy 940: Voluntary Cleanup Program and Sediment Sites, for more information).

• The contaminant is not petroleum released from a petroleum storage tank system (for all petroleum storage tank releases, see the Petroleum-contaminated sites below).

• The site isn't part of a cleanup project supervised or conducted by Ecology or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with an ongoing Potentially Liable Person dispute.

• The contamination does not pose a significant or immediate risk to people or other living things.

• The site is not a landfill.

Other cleanup options

• Ecology-supervised cleanups: We provide both formal oversight and approval of cleanups through our supervised cleanup process. For cleanup sites that don't qualify to apply to the VCP, you can contact Ecology’s regional office contacts to discuss supervised cleanup options.

• Independent cleanups without applying to VCP: The majority of cleanups in Washington are conducted as independent remedial actions. Some of these sites may choose to work with the VCP with the end goal of receiving a No Further Action opinion from us. You may also conduct an independent remedial action without applying to the VCP, but there'll be no opportunity to get a No Further Action opinion from us.

• Petroleum-contaminated sites: The Pollution Liability Insurance Agency (PLIA) Technical Assistance Program (TAP) provides informal site-specific technical consultations and issues written opinion letters to people conducting independent cleanups at qualifying heating oil and other petroleum storage tank cleanup sites. PLIA is a separate agency and is not an Ecology program.