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OHIO
UECA and Ohio’s House Bill 516
In June 2004, a bill was introduced in the Ohio House of Representatives that, if successfully passed, will integrate many of the beneficial concepts of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws’ Uniform Environmental Covenants Act (UECA) into Ohio law.
Ohio’s Uniform Environmental Covenants Act would establish “environmental covenants” (e.g., institutional controls or deed restrictions) as an interest in real property. Environmental covenants are expected to arise as a result of an environmental remediation that imposes activity and use limitations, such as land and ground water use restrictions, on a property.
These environmental covenants would require the proper recordation on deed records. This will not change day-to-day Ohio EPA’s Voluntary Action Program (VAP) activities much at all because Ohio VAP has had a law since 1994 that requires the recordation of use restrictions and includes requirements for long-term stewardship of those restrictions.
What the bill will do is provide clarity on the development, approval and recordation of use restrictions for other Ohio EPA programs such as the RCRA corrective action program where use restrictions are relied upon but are not currently codified in Ohio Revised Code.
This would allow for consistency in activity and use restrictions throughout all Ohio environmental programs and would also provide a more uniform restriction that county recorders can more easily recognize and record appropriately.
House Bill 516 consists of the UECA, as adopted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in August 2003. Additional provisions have been added to the UECA to conform with Ohio law, including the VAP statute.
It is anticipated that House Bill 516 will be assigned to a committee of the Ohio House of Representatives in November or December 2004. Click here to obtain a copy of House Bill 516.
By Amy Yersavich, manager of Ohio EPA’s Voluntary Action Program.