Montana Code Annotated 2023

TITLE 75. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

CHAPTER 10. WASTE AND LITTER CONTROL

Part 7. Remedial Action Upon Release of Hazardous Substance

Institutional Controls

75-10-727. Institutional controls. (1) An owner of real property may, with department approval, restrict the use of the owner's real property to mitigate the risk posed to the public health, safety, and welfare and the environment by imposing on the real property, without conveying the property or creating a dominant and servient estate, an appropriate institutional control.

(2) An institutional control restricting present and future real property rights is placed on a property by filing a written instrument evidencing the restrictions to be placed on the use of the property with the county clerk in the county in which the property is located.

(3) An institutional control that restricts real property runs with the land and is binding on all successors in interest to real property until the institutional control is removed.

(4) An institutional control must be removed if there is not an unacceptable risk posed to public health, safety, and welfare and the environment. An owner may request department approval to remove all or a portion of the institutional controls from the real property. The department shall review the request and provide the owner with its decision to approve or deny the request within 120 days from the department's receipt of the request. If the department denies the request, it shall provide the owner with a written explanation of the denial. A department decision to deny the request may be appealed to the board of environmental review and conducted as a contested case proceeding pursuant to Title 2, chapter 4.

(5) If the department or the board approves an owner's request to remove all or a portion of the institutional controls, the owner shall file the approval with the county clerk in the county in which the real property is located.

History: En. Sec. 4, Ch. 437, L. 1999.