Poisoned Property Find out what toxic waste is lurking on your land before you buy--and avoid footing the bill to clean it up later.

Toxic waste, heavy metals, Super fundsites . . . these all have to do with old minesand abandoned factories, right? Not necessarily. When you buyproperty for your business, it's a sure bet that someone elseowned it before you, and someone else before that. Maybe it was adry cleaner who routinely poured used solvent down the drain andout into an underground leaching field. Maybe it was a farmer whodisposed of almost--but not quite-- empty pesticide barrels bytossing them into the ravine. Maybe it was a skeet-shooting resortwith lead shots peppering the ground and poisoning wild geese. Whenyour property turns out to be contaminated, it's your legalresponsibility to pay for the cleanup--even if your business hadnothing to do with creating the problem.

That's because of the federal Comprehensive EnvironmentalResponse, Compensation and Liability Act, better known as CERCLA,or the Superfund law. This 20-year-old law holds property ownersresponsible for the cost of cleaning up environmental contaminationfound on their property. Typically, the state or federal agencydiscovering the problem seeks to recover the cost of cleanup fromthe party who's easiest to find: the current owner. Thenit's up to that owner to track down whoever was responsible forthe contamination and sue for compensation. (Given the thousands ofconvoluted Superfund lawsuits mired in the courts, it's obviousthe ones "cleaning up" are the lawyers.)

The legal principle involved here is "joint and severalliability." It means that any one of the parties involved canbe held responsible for the entire cost. In the case ofcontaminated property, that could be the individual or businessthat created the problem in the first place, the property owner atthe time of contamination, the current owner or even the lender whohelped finance the purchase of the property. It's convenientfor government agencies, but hardly fair to innocent landownerstrying to run their businesses.