2005 Rhode Island Code - § 23-19.14-5 — Environmental equity and public participation.

    (a) The department of environmental management shall consider the effects that clean-ups would have on the populations surrounding each site and shall consider the issues of environmental equity for low income and racial minority populations. The department of environmental management will develop and implement a process to ensure community involvement throughout the investigation and remediation of contaminated sites. That process shall include, but not be limited to, the following components:

   (1) Notification to abutting residents when a work plan for a site investigation is proposed;

   (2) Adequate availability of all public records concerning the investigation and clean-up of the site, including, where necessary, the establishment of informational repositories in the impacted community; and

   (3) Notification to abutting residents, and other interested parties, when the investigation of the site is deemed complete by the department of environmental management.

   (b) This community involvement process will be coordinated with the public notice and comment opportunity provided in § 23-19.14-11 when a final settlement agreement is proposed.

   (c) The department of environmental management will develop and implement a process by which a person that is or may be affected by a release or threatened release of a hazardous material at a site located in the community in which the person works or resides may request the conduct of a site assessment; and a decision process, with objective criteria, specifying how the department will consider and appropriately respond to such requests.

   (d) The department of environmental management will maintain, update not less than annually, and make available to the public a record of sites, by name and location, at which remedial actions have been completed in the previous year and are planned to be addressed under the state site remediation and Brownfields program in the upcoming year. The public record shall identify whether or not the site, on completion of the remedial action, will be suitable for unrestricted use and, if not, shall identify the institutional controls relied on in the remedy.