West Virginia § 22-22-14 - 22-22-14. Land-use covenant; criminal penalties.

§ 22-22-14. 22-22-14. Land-use covenant; criminal penalties.

(a) The Secretary shall establish by rule, criteria for deed recordation of land-use covenants and containing all necessary deed restrictions. The Secretary shall cause all land-use covenants to appear in the chain of title by deed to be properly recorded in the office of the county clerk where the remediation site is located. If institutional and engineering controls are used, in whole or in part, to achieve a remediation standard, the Secretary shall direct that a land-use covenant be applied. The covenant shall include whether residential or nonresidential exposure factors were used to comply with the site-specific standard. The covenant shall contain a provision relieving the person who undertook the remediation and subsequent successors and assigns from all civil liability to the state as provided under this article and shall remain effective as long as the property complies with the applicable standards in effect at the time the covenant was issued.

(b) Whoever knowingly violates a land-use covenant by converting nonresidential property to residential property is guilty of a felony, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $25,000, imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.