Crazy story about owning land

[mlammerhirt]

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/landowners-sue-after-federally-funded-epa-program-sends-them-million-dollar-cleanup-bill/article_abe60ff2-9a60-11ec-9140-5b4c4ab68a24.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1

 

Can never be to careful when buying land.....this people are in a hole right now. Never fun fighting the feds.

 

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[First-light]

Crazy I wish them well, no pun intended. 

[Paula]

Wants me to pay to read it

[Nomad]

Yep, my buddy hired some sort of environmental engineer to inspect his land prior to making an offer .

But these people seemed to have been mislead by the Gov. ( aka screwed ) 

I know they bought in 2000, but today I wouldn’t touch land with “ old oil wells “ on it for free .

[moog5050]

There is an innocent landowner defense now under CERCLA (before if you owned it you were stuck) but I think you need to prove that after a reasonable inquiry you were not aware of contamination when you bought the parcel.  

[hueyjazz]

I worked for the better part of 40 years with environmental in my title running industrial facilities. 

When buying a property, you do inherit environmental liability.  But key to liability is who created the problem.  The premise is call "Cradle to Grave".    Who owned and operated this facility and created issue has the majority of liability. 

But this could of been a wildcat operation with no successors and in that case they go after anyone with liability.  It's insane to buy any property with issues unless you have an iron clad release from something like the Brownfield program where you pay to clean up property by what DEC tells you to do.  In return they certify property clean and release you from liability.

A lot of parts of this story make very little sense.  The DEC does everything in writing "Agency Told Them" ?

Crews came on property?  And closed wells?  This wouldn't have been a minor operation and would have gone on for many months.

You can get a huge amount of information on any property directly from DEC website link.  Check the right boxes and you can find out anything with instant access.  Good for topo maps too!

DECinfo Locator (ny.gov)

 

[mlammerhirt]

I worked for the better part of 40 years with environmental in my title running industrial facilities. 
When buying a property, you do inherit environmental liability.  But key to liability is who created the problem.  The premise is call "Cradle to Grave".    Who owned and operated this facility and created issue has the majority of liability. 
But this could of been a wildcat operation with no successors and in that case they go after anyone with liability.  It's insane to buy any property with issues unless you have an iron clad release from something like the Brownfield program where you pay to clean up property by what DEC tells you to do.  In return they certify property clean and release you from liability.
A lot of parts of this story make very little sense.  The DEC does everything in writing "Agency Told Them" ?
Crews came on property?  And closed wells?  This wouldn't have been a minor operation and would have gone on for many months.
You can get a huge amount of information on any property directly from DEC website link.  Check the right boxes and you can find out anything with instant access.  Good for topo maps too!
DECinfo Locator (ny.gov)
 

I think the article said they tore out old lines as well.....that had be a pretty big operation.

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[CarlosB]

61 acres for $8400. That would have been a huge red flag immediately. $137 an acre??? I'm not tuned into acreage value but I would think even land that wasn't buildable was still worth more than that, even in the year 2000.

[eaglemountainman]

3 hours ago, CarlosB said:

61 acres for $8400. That would have been a huge red flag immediately. $137 an acre??? I'm not tuned into acreage value but I would think even land that wasn't buildable was still worth more than that, even in the year 2000.

I was thinking the same thing. I think there might be a bit more to this.

[CarlosB]

1 hour ago, eaglemountainman said:

I was thinking the same thing. I think there might be a bit more to this.

I googled a bit. The person who owned the wells signed a consent order in 1994 wherein he had to close all the wells. He closed 3 by 1995 and stopped responding sometime after and NYSDEC filed an order without hearing levying a 45k fine and requiring closure of all wells by 1999. Seems the well owner may have passed around 2017.

 

Some well pics below