When regulatory agencies, municipalities or private property owners discover soil and groundwater contamination, a demand to pay for the cleanup is made to those companies that have the deepest pockets and are the most obvious legally liable parties (responsible parties). The laws state that responsible parties have “joint and several liability”. This means that any responsible party can be held accountable for the entire environmental problem. Most of the time the most obvious party is only one in a history of past owners and operators, waste transporters or generators that may have contributed to the environmental impairment.

Companies thus unfairly singled out for environmental expenditures can take the defensive measure of requesting a search for a potentially responsible party from Policy Find. Policy Find will conduct document searches to determine other owners, operators, transporters and generators at the site. Further, Policy Find PRP searchers will conduct interviews with knowledgeable persons to determine the current whereabouts of other companies or individuals and locate documentation linking them to the waste site.

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A successful search can cut the original PRP’s financial burden by fifty to seventy-five percent. Once other parties are linked to the contamination at the site, they can be brought to the attention of governmental authorities and be made to share the financial burden of site characterization and clean up. Sometimes, the entire burden of environmental action can be shifted to a newly discovered polluter depending on the circumstances of the particular site history.

In those states whose insurance laws are strict, only pre-1986 standard liability policies can be depended upon to provide a defense in environmental property damage scenarios. If your company is a recent owner or operator at the site, your insurance may be too recent to be of any help in offsetting the costs you are expected to pay. In these situations, potentially responsible party searches can be most valuable. Other potentially responsible parties can be found to contribute what your insurance assets cannot. Also, even where other PRPs discovered are found to be bankrupt or insolvent, their insurance policies may provide defense and indemnity at sites these PRPs helped pollute.