Colorado environmental covenants and use restrictions

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has the authority to approve requests to restrict the future use of a property through an enforceable agreement called an environmental covenant. It publishes a list and a statewide map of the sites that carry an environmental covenant or an environmental use restriction.

In a Phase I ESA

CDPHE's list is the Colorado form of the state institutional and engineering control records that ASTM E1527-21 lists as a standard source. The general reading of a control listing is on the State/Tribal Institutional and Engineering Control Registries page. Five Colorado details shape how to read one.

• A covenant means something was left. CDPHE says land use restrictions may be used to ensure that the cleanup remedy adequately protects human health and the environment when a contaminated site is not cleaned up completely.
• It can carry engineering controls too. CDPHE describes an environmental covenant as setting out land use restrictions, operation and maintenance of engineering controls, and other requirements that stay with the property even if it is sold. Read the covenant itself for which of these apply.
• Three routes lead to one. On CDPHE's pages a covenant follows a solid waste or hazardous waste cleanup that cannot meet an unrestricted use standard, and a conditional closure, where remediation and groundwater monitoring may cease with groundwater still above state standards.
• There are two instruments. CDPHE's guidance titles and model language name both environmental covenants and notices of environmental use restriction. The page read does not explain the difference between them, so note which one a site has.
• Petroleum tank closures are not mentioned. The pages read do not say that this list covers petroleum releases closed by the Division of Oil and Public Safety. That agency says it will map its own Tier III sites; see Petroleum release closure criteria.

CDPHE's page links its guidance on implementing institutional controls (2020), a policy on the timing of covenants and notices (2011), and guidance on selecting and drafting environmental use restrictions (2022). They were not read for this page.

Where to look a site up

• CDPHE's Sites with environmental covenants and use restrictions page carries the list as a report that can be opened in a new tab to view full screen and export results.
• The statewide map of covenant and environmental use restriction sites. CDPHE says to zoom in to the area of interest to see sites.
• CDPHE's Environmental maps and GIS data page, where the covenants page says to scroll down to covenants and institutional control sites.

Getting the file

Ask for the covenant and the cleanup record behind it. CDPHE's Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division has an online records search and takes requests through the form on its records review page or at cdphe_cora_hmwmd@state.co.us. The route is described on the records review page.

Sources

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment pages, read October 7, 2026, no modified date shown:

• Environmental covenants and use restrictions
• Sites with environmental covenants and use restrictions
• Environmental cleanup
• Conditional closures
• Environmental maps and GIS data
• Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division records review

Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Division of Oil and Public Safety pages, read October 7, 2026, no modified date shown:

• Release Closure Criteria