Delaware Grants Authority to State Environmental Agency to Impose Environmental Liens to Recover Investigation and Clean-up Costs
Summer 2013
Publication| Environmental
In the recent legislative session, Delaware took another step to require responsible parties to clean-up contaminated property by enacting environmental lien legislation. Delaware’s new environmental lien statute allows the State’s environmental agency, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (“DNREC”), to impose environmental liens on real property to recover its clean-up costs. While not a “super-priority” lien, a lien created under this legislation will have priority over “after-perfected” liens and encumbrances.