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Requirements for municipalities and approving officers

Last updated on January 12, 2023

The Environmental Management Act (EMA) and Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR) assign the following administrative duties to municipalities and approving officers in relation to Site Disclosure Statements.

A municipality or approving officer must complete their assessment, forwarding and notification duties within 15 days of receiving a Site Disclosure Statement.

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Assessing a Site Disclosure Statement

There are 2 steps to assessing a Site Disclosure Statement.

1. Determine if it’s legally required:

  • If there are no specified Schedule 2 uses or an exemption listed in CSR section 4 applies, the form is not legally required and is not submitted to the registrar. It may be returned to the applicant or retained by the municipality or approving officer for their records. No further action is required
  • As described by Section 3.5 of the CSR, a municipality or approving officer can request a person applying for or otherwise seeking approval of a matter referred to in Section 40 (1) of the Act to provide the information required by a Site Disclosure Statement even though the person is not required under EMA to provide a Site Disclosure Statement

2. If the Site Disclosure Statement is legally required, is it satisfactorily completed?

The owner or operator who signed the form is responsible for the accuracy of the responses on the form.

The municipality or approving officer has no duty to search its records to assess a Site Disclosure Statement, although they may wish to do so.

 

How to use an exemption

Exemptions from the requirement to submit a Site Disclosure Statement are provided in Division 3 of the CSR. They're applied after a triggering action occurs at a site with a history of specified Schedule 2 uses.

The ministry does not approve the use of an exemption; it is up to the applicant to demonstrate that an exemption applies to the municipality or approving officer.

Municipalities and approving officers should review the exemption against the specifics of the application to determine if it's applicable. Additional information can be requested from the applicant if needed.

For exemptions that fall under CSR 4 (1):

To determine if an applicant has an exemption from submitting a Site Disclosure Statement where the site is subject to a Certificate of Compliance (CoC) or an Approval in Principle (AiP), the municipality or approving officer should confirm:

The CoC or AiP has not been rescinded. Send an inquiry to siteID@gov.bc.ca.

  • The CoC or AiP is relevant to any existing or proposed use based on the details of an application
  • The applicant has made reasonable inquiries and has no reason to believe any further contamination occurred at the site after the AiP or CoC was issued

The applicant must also provide a copy of the CoC or AiP to the municipality or approving officer.

 

Approving authority contact info

The municipality or approving officer must complete this section of the Site Disclosure Statement before submitting it to the registrar (the last section of the form). The reason(s) for submission must also be checked.

Incomplete Site Disclosure Statements submitted to the registrar will be returned to the municipality or approving officer for follow-up.

Managing disagreements

Although there's no duty for a municipality or approving officer to search its records, there may be situations where the municipality or approving officer disagrees with the information provided on a Site Disclosure Statement because it is inconsistent with the knowledge or information possessed by the municipality or approving officer.

In these instances, the ministry expects the municipality or approving officer to work with the applicant to resolve the dispute. If a resolution cannot be achieved independently, contact the ministry at siteID@gov.bc.ca for further advice. 

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When to send a Site Disclosure Statement

A Site Disclosure Statement is only forwarded to the registrar if:

  • There's at least one Schedule 2 use list in Section III
  • The Site Disclosure Statement is assessed as satisfactorily completed
  • No exemptions apply to the application

Forward the Site Disclosure Statement to the registrar at siteID@gov.bc.ca.

 

When to notify the applicant

Notify the applicant if the Site Disclosure Statement is either incomplete or has been forwarded to the registrar.

For incomplete submissions, if the Site Disclosure Statement is resubmitted, the processing time of 15 days is reset to day one.

 

Process overview

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side identification process

Immunity

Section 61 of EMA provides broad immunity for municipalities and their corporations when they administer Site Disclosure Statements or other delegated functions under the legislation, even against negligence. It does not protect against willful misconduct.

Municipalities cannot be held liable for any costs arising from their reliance on a Determination, Approval in Principle, or Certificate of Compliance issued by a director. The municipality may approve any outstanding applications if the document is valid for the proposed land use at a site.

Municipalities as property owners

Like any landowner, a municipality could be held liable for remediation of a contaminated site that they own or previously owned.

However, it's recognized there are some circumstances where a municipality should not be held liable for site remediation:

  • Sites they acquired involuntarily
    • For example, through a property tax default
  • Contaminated easements, highways, or rights-of-way for underground utilities, unless they caused the contamination
  • If tenants or lessees caused contamination that the municipal site owner did not know of
  • If they unknowingly purchased a contaminated site after making appropriate inquiries before the acquisition and they did not contribute to the contamination

Review the Remediation liability page for more information.

The information on this web page does not replace the legislative requirements in the EMA or its regulations and it does not list all provisions for contaminated site services.

If there are differences between this information and the Act, Regulation, or Protocols, the Act, Regulation, and Protocols apply.