State/Tribal Institutional & Engineering Control Registries

ASTM search distance Subject property only

Scope State / Tribal

Registries or publicly available lists of the institutional controls and engineering controls placed on a property. The inquiry rule and the standard both call for them to be reviewed, and they do not reach the same distance.

What puts a property on this record

Each state keeps its own list under its own program. The standard defines both kinds of control. The inquiry rule defines one.

The rule defines institutional controls as "non-engineered instruments, such as administrative and/or legal controls, that help to minimize the potential for human exposure to contamination and/or protect the integrity of a remedy" (40 CFR 312.10). It prints no definition of engineering controls; a term it uses without defining takes any definition that CERCLA or 40 CFR part 300 gives it (40 CFR 312.10(a)). In the standard, institutional controls are the legal or administrative kind, such as a restrictive covenant or zoning, that limit how a site is used or entered, either to cut exposure to contamination in soil or groundwater or to keep activities from undermining a response action (E1527-21, 3.2.42). Engineering controls are the physical kind, such as a cap or a slurry wall, built to cut that exposure (E1527-21, 3.2.26). Each is one kind of activity and use limitation, a term the standard takes from Guide E2091 to cover both the legal and the physical kind (E1527-21, 3.2.2, 5.2).

What a listing shows, and what it does not

The rule asks for these registries and does not say what a registry must hold. The standard reads an activity and use limitation as a regulatory agency's open acknowledgment that some contamination may remain on a property and that the property may not be fit for unrestricted use (E1527-21, 5.1). It also says limitations may be found in registries in place of, or as well as, the land title records, that some states keep reasonably ascertainable registries and others do not, and that some limitations may sit only in project documentation that may be beyond what is reasonably ascertainable (E1527-21, 5.5). The standard does not say that a registry search that finds nothing shows there is no limitation.

In a Phase I ESA

State and tribal institutional control and engineering control registries are standard sources, and the standard limits the search to the subject property (E1527-21, 8.2.2, Table 2). Where the table gives subject property only, the standard confines the search to the subject property and allows no reduction of it, except for a record that is not reasonably ascertainable (E1527-21, 8.1.2.1). The professional should determine whether these limitations are reasonably ascertainable in the state where the property lies (E1527-21, 5.5).

The professional can review agency records and registries for limitations on the subject property (E1527-21, 5.1). Reviewing land title records for them is a user responsibility (E1527-21, 5.4). When the subject property is identified, the pertinent agency file should be reviewed, or the professional reviews alternative sources and gives an opinion on their sufficiency, or explains why no review was warranted (E1527-21, 8.2.3).

The facts that bear on the question are what the instrument restricts or requires, what exposure it is meant to control, whether the use of the property has changed since the control was set, and what the file says about the substances left in place (E1527-21, 3.2.17.1, 5.3). Whether a party is complying with a limitation is outside the scope of the practice (E1527-21, 13.1.4). The controlled definition covers a recognized environmental condition addressed to the authority's satisfaction, with hazardous substances or petroleum products left in place under required controls (E1527-21, 3.2.17). The historical definition turns on a release addressed to the agency's satisfaction, meeting unrestricted use criteria, without any control (E1527-21, 3.2.39). The report sets out the reasoning in the Findings and Opinions (E1527-21, 3.2.17.1).

See Activity and use limitations and REC, CREC, HREC or de minimis condition.

For every listing of the subject property or of another site inside the search distance, the report must give the professional's judgment on what the listing means for the analysis of recognized environmental conditions at the subject property, and one statement may cover several sites (E1527-21, 8.1.10).

What the federal rule says

For the subject property, the rule says the review should include:

Registries or publicly available lists of institutional controls, including environmental land use restrictions, applicable to the subject property

40 CFR 312.26(b)(7), edition revised as of July 1, 2025

The rule also lists registries of engineering controls for the subject property (40 CFR 312.26(b)(6)). For nearby and adjoining properties, it gives one-half mile for registries and public lists of engineering controls, a distance the professional may modify with the rationale documented (40 CFR 312.26(c)(2)(ii), (d)), and it does not list institutional control registries there. The standard gives subject property only for the state and tribal registries (E1527-21, 8.2.2, Table 2). The rule says the procedures of the standard may be used to comply with 312.23 through 312.31 (40 CFR 312.11).

Where the record is kept

State cleanup program registries and the recorded covenants themselves in county land records.

This page is general reference for environmental professionals. It does not classify any property. ASTM E1527-21 is the standard and is not reproduced here; the judgment of the environmental professional on the facts governs.

Classifying a finding

Situations in which this record type bears on the answer:

In each state

The state programs this handbook covers under this record type: