Chapter Five AGREEMENTS - Illinois Department of Transportation

BUREAU OF LOCAL ROADS & STREETS
Jan 2006 AGREEMENTS 5-9(1)
5-9 TIERED APPROACH TO CORRECTIVE ACTION OBJECTIVES AGREEMENTS
Illinois environmental law requires the Illinois Pollution Control Board to consider land use
controls in determining risk to human health from contamination in soil and groundwater. This
approach is known as the Tiered Approach to Corrective Action Objectives (TACO). As a result
of IDOT’s effort, IDOT has developed Highway Authority Agreements, which are the land use
controls recognized in TACO; see Section 20-12.09 of this Manual for TACO agreements. In
the agreement, IDOT or a local highway authority is responsible, depending on who signs the
agreement, for the following commitments:
• The agency will not allow drinking water wells to tap groundwater in the area of the rightof-way
that may be contaminated.
• If soil in the right-of-way that may be contaminated is excavated, human health and the
environment will be protected.
For a highway authority willing to make these commitments, there are a number of significant
benefits. These include:
1. Notification. A company is required to notify the agency that it has contaminated the
right-of-way and will take responsibility. These agreements could cover nearly any type
of pollutant.
2. Release. The company gives the agency a legal release from liability and indemnifies
the agency for claims that may be made.
3. Reimbursement. Should the local agency excavate through contaminated soil in the
right-of-way (e.g., release of petroleum), the company will reimburse the local agency’s
costs of dealing with the contamination (e.g., cost of disposing of the contaminated soil
in a landfill).
A company that has contaminated the right-of-way has two choices:
• it can clean up the right-of-way, or
• it can negotiate a Highway Authority Agreement that is acceptable to the local agency.
The first choice is expensive and an unnecessary drain on the Leaking Underground Storage
Tank Fund. This fund reimburses owners for their cleanup costs of those tanks. Money for this
fund comes from tax on motor fuel sold at the pump, similar to the Motor Fuel Tax. It is typically
unnecessary because the cleanup is not needed to protect human health and the environment.
However, the local agency still must meet its commitments made in the Highway Authority
Agreement.