6 NYCRR Part 375: Environmental Remediation Programs

6 NYCRR Part 375 is the New York State regulation that governs how contaminated properties get investigated, cleaned up, and released back into use. Administered by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), it sets up three remediation programs, defines numeric soil cleanup standards, and lays out the path from application to Certificate of Completion. If you own, are buying, or want to redevelop a contaminated site in New York, Part 375 is the rulebook that decides what “cleaned up” means and what legal protection you walk away with.

The Three Programs Part 375 Creates

Which program applies to you depends on who you are and how the contamination got there.

The State Superfund (Subpart 375-2) covers inactive hazardous waste disposal sites that pose a significant threat to health or the environment. The DEC lists the site, identifies responsible parties, and runs the cleanup. At a listed site, no one may alter or dispose of the contaminants that caused the listing without DEC approval.¹

The Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP), Subpart 375-3, is the voluntary route. Private parties clean sites in exchange for liability protection and tax credits, with the policy aim of pulling development onto contaminated urban land instead of greenfields.²

The Environmental Restoration Program (Subpart 375-4) is only for municipalities. A local government that did not contaminate a brownfield site can get state assistance covering up to 90% of eligible investigation and remediation costs.³

Volunteer or Participant: Why Your Status Matters

When you enter a program, Part 375 classifies you as either a Volunteer or a Participant. A Volunteer is someone with no legal responsibility for the hazardous waste disposal or petroleum discharge at the site. A Participant either owned or operated the site when the disposal or discharge occurred, or failed to take reasonable steps to stop ongoing releases.²

The label determines how intensively the DEC oversees your work and how broad the eventual liability protection runs. A completed cleanup produces a Certificate of Completion that limits your liability to the State for contamination identified during the program, but the scope of that limitation differs by status.²

Sites the BCP Will Not Accept

The BCP excludes properties where other enforcement regimes already have jurisdiction or where the problem is too severe for a voluntary framework:

Class 1 or 2 sites on the Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites where a viable responsible party has been identified.
Sites on the federal EPA National Priorities List.
Hazardous waste treatment, storage, or disposal facilities permitted under RCRA and owned by a viable responsible party. Interim-status facilities remain eligible.
Sites subject to cleanup orders under Navigation Law Article 12 or ECL Article 17, Title 10 (oil spills and bulk petroleum storage).
Sites subject to any ongoing state or federal enforcement action for solid waste, hazardous waste, or petroleum.

How Clean Is Clean Enough

Subpart 375-6 sets Soil Cleanup Objectives (SCOs), which are the numeric concentration limits for contaminants that may remain after remediation. The limits are not fixed; they move with the land use you choose for the property. Pick the wrong category and you either spend far more than needed or end up blocked from the use you planned.

The strictest standard is unrestricted use. Cleaning to this level means no environmental easement, no site management plan, and no ongoing monitoring.⁴

Every other category is restricted use and requires both an environmental easement and a site management plan. Four tiers apply:

Residential: Any use except raising livestock or producing animal products for human consumption. Groundwater restrictions are allowed; no other institutional or engineering controls may be imposed. This is the tier used for single-family housing.
Restricted-residential: Requires common ownership or a single managing entity. Vegetable gardens are prohibited, though raised planters with clean imported soil are permitted. Single-family housing is barred unless the land beneath structures remains commonly owned in perpetuity. Active recreation with reasonable soil contact potential is included.
Commercial: Buying, selling, or trading merchandise or services, plus indoor agricultural production not in contact with on-site soils. Passive recreation with limited soil contact is included.
Industrial: Manufacturing, production, fabrication, assembly, and supporting services. No recreational component permitted.

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The actual numbers sit in Tables 375-6.8(a) and 375-6.8(b). Table (a) handles unrestricted use. Table (b) covers residential, restricted-residential, commercial, and industrial categories, with separate columns for protection of ecological resources and groundwater. The tables address metals like arsenic and lead, pesticides and PCBs, semivolatile organics like benzo(a)pyrene, and volatile organics like trichloroethene and benzene. Allowable concentrations rise as the use becomes more restrictive: residential and ecological SCOs cap at 100 ppm, commercial at 500 ppm, and industrial and groundwater-protection SCOs at 1,000 ppm. Metal SCOs cap at 10,000 ppm.⁵

A sensitive aquifer under the site can force cleanup well below the land-use number through the groundwater-protection column. Nearby wetlands or sensitive habitat can do the same through the ecological column.

Site Classifications on the Registry

Any site on the Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites carries a classification from 1 through 5. The number drives DEC priority and the resources assigned to the site.

Class 1: Significant threat causing or imminently risking irreversible environmental damage. Highest priority.
Class 2: Confirmed hazardous waste disposal representing a significant threat, or a site on the federal National Priorities List.
Class 3: Contamination does not currently constitute a significant threat and is not reasonably expected to. The DEC will not use this classification merely because data is thin.
Class 4: Properly closed, but ongoing operation, maintenance, or monitoring is required. A Certificate of Completion may be issued concurrently with reclassification to Class 4.
Class 5: Properly closed, no further action required.

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What the Application Process Looks Like

Before applying, you need environmental data on the site. A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment performed under ASTM E1527-21 reviews historical records, regulatory databases, and a physical inspection to identify recognized environmental conditions.⁷ If the Phase I turns up potential contamination, a Phase II follows: actual sampling of soil, groundwater, and soil vapor to confirm what is present and at what levels. The Phase II data drives everything downstream, including which program and cleanup track fit the site.

The application itself needs a legal description of the property, current ownership documentation, the applicant’s legal status, and detailed maps of the contaminated area, surrounding properties, and sensitive receptors such as wells and waterways. Forms come from the DEC’s Division of Environmental Remediation. Electronic submission through the DEC file transfer portal or email to the regional project manager is standard, with physical copies to the relevant Regional Office and the Central Office in Albany.

Once the DEC deems the application complete, a 30-day public comment period opens. The DEC publishes notice in the Environmental Notice Bulletin, and the applicant handles newspaper notices and mailings to the brownfield site contact list. A site-specific citizen participation plan covering every required notice, fact sheet, and comment window must also be prepared, and the DEC will not approve the remedial investigation work plan until the citizen participation plan is approved first. Every notice must be DEC-reviewed, sent to the contact list, and documented with proof of mailing within five days.⁸

At the end of the review, BCP applicants sign a Brownfield Cleanup Agreement (BCA) and ERP municipalities sign a State Assistance Contract. The BCA is a binding contract. Two provisions in particular trip people up: unless the DEC agrees otherwise, you indemnify the State for claims arising out of the remediation (with an exception only for the State’s own gross negligence or willful misconduct), and while you may withdraw on 15 days’ written notice, you can only do so if the site presents no immediate threat and is in no worse condition than when you entered.⁹

The Certificate of Completion

The Certificate of Completion (COC) is the end state. The DEC issues it after approving your Final Engineering Report and confirming that the site meets the cleanup standards for the project. Without a COC, you have no liability protection and no access to the tax credits.

A professional engineer who had primary day-to-day responsibility for the remedial work prepares the Final Engineering Report. The report describes every remedial action taken, documents any DEC-approved changes from the work plan, lists waste streams and disposal destinations, identifies imported backfill and cover soils with analytical results, and includes a site management plan where ongoing controls are required.¹⁰

The COC itself describes the site, summarizes the contamination found, bars uses inconsistent with any land use restrictions imposed by the remedy, and lists all engineering and institutional controls. It also warns that failing to maintain those controls or complete site management obligations can lead to revocation.¹¹

Transferring the COC to a New Owner

COC liability protection does not automatically pass with the deed. The DEC must receive advance notice under the change-of-use rules at 6 NYCRR 375-1.11(d), and within 30 days of the transfer, the new owner must file a Notice of Transfer and give the DEC proof of filing. Once filed, the COC is deemed issued to the successor.¹²

The successor takes on full responsibility for operating and maintaining engineering controls and complying with institutional controls under the site management plan and environmental easement. A COC cannot be transferred to a responsible party. Failing to record the Notice of Transfer is grounds for revocation.¹²

How a COC Can Be Revoked

The DEC may modify or revoke a COC if the holder fails to manage required controls or monitoring, violates the terms of any order, agreement, or State assistance contract, materially misrepresented that cleanup levels were achieved, intentionally violated the environmental easement, or for good cause.¹¹ In practice, the most common route to revocation is neglecting post-cleanup obligations in the site management plan, especially letting engineering controls such as vapor barriers or caps fall into disrepair.

Environmental Easements and Ongoing Obligations

Any restricted-use remedy requires a recorded environmental easement. The easement is a legal instrument that runs with the land and binds every future owner.¹³ The State, acting through the DEC, is the grantee. The easement describes every use restriction and engineering control, must be recorded in the county clerk’s office, and must be referenced by book and page number in every subsequent deed. Every future deed must also carry a conspicuous statement disclosing that the property is subject to an environmental easement held by the DEC.¹⁴

Common engineering controls documented in the easement and managed through the site management plan include synthetic caps, sub-slab depressurization systems for vapor intrusion, and groundwater containment. Institutional controls generally take the form of groundwater use restrictions and prohibitions on certain land uses. The site management plan spells out how each control is implemented, maintained, monitored, and enforced for as long as contamination remains.¹³

Brownfield Tax Credits

For most private developers, the brownfield redevelopment tax credit under New York Tax Law Section 21 is what makes a BCP project pencil out. It has two components.

The site preparation and groundwater remediation component covers remediation and site-prep costs. The percentage tracks how aggressively you clean:

Unrestricted use (Track 1): 50%
Residential: 40%
Commercial: 33%
Industrial: 27%
Residential (Track 4): 28%
Commercial (Track 4): 25%
Industrial (Track 4): 22%

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The tangible property component covers buildings and improvements placed on the site after cleanup. For sites accepted into the BCP on or after July 1, 2015, the base rate is 10%, with additional 5% bumps available for a site in an Environmental Zone or disadvantaged community, a site in a designated Brownfield Opportunity Area developed consistent with that area’s goals, an affordable housing project, a manufacturing use, and a Track 1 cleanup.

The tangible property component is capped at 24% regardless of how many bonuses stack, and it is further limited to the lesser of $35 million or three times the site preparation and groundwater components. For manufacturing sites, the cap rises to the lesser of $45 million or six times those components.¹⁵

The credits are refundable and can be claimed starting in the tax year following issuance of the COC. No COC, no credit. That is why finishing the Part 375 process cleanly, with all documentation in order, is what unlocks the financial side of a brownfield redevelopment.

1
Legal Information Institute. New York Compilation of Codes, Rules, and Regulations Title 6 Part 375 – Environmental Remediation Programs
2
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Brownfield Cleanup Program
3
New York State Grants Gateway. Environmental Restoration Program Procedures Handbook
4
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. 6 NYCRR Part 375, Environmental Remediation Programs
5
Legal Information Institute. New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations Title 6 Section 375-6.8 – Soil Cleanup Objective Tables
6
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Site Classifications
7
ASTM International. ASTM E1527-21 Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments – Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process
8
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. 6 NYCRR Section 375-1.10 – Citizen Participation
9
Legal Information Institute. New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations Title 6 Section 375-3.5 – Brownfield Site Cleanup Agreements
10
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. 6 NYCRR Part 375 – Environmental Remediation Programs
11
Legal Information Institute. New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations Title 6 Section 375-1.9 – Certificate of Completion
12
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Certificates of Completion and Post-COC Obligations
13
Legal Information Institute. New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations Title 6 Section 375-1.8 – Remedial Program
14
New York State Senate. New York Environmental Conservation Law Section 71-3605
15
New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Brownfield Redevelopment Tax Credit Rate Structure