Colorado solid and hazardous waste cleanup

Outside Superfund and voluntary cleanup, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) oversees the cleanup of releases under the state's solid waste and hazardous waste laws. Which track a site is on depends on what was released, and each track leaves a different paper trail.

In a Phase I ESA

CDPHE describes these cleanups as a process and names no list for them on the pages read, so this handbook does not pair them with one of ASTM E1527-21's standard record types. They are the cleanups a consultant meets in a CDPHE file that is not a voluntary cleanup, a Superfund site or a tank release.

Four details shape how to read such a file.

• The investigation has a stated scope. For a solid waste release the party with the release must characterize the nature and extent of the release and the media affected. For a hazardous waste release that party must investigate the nature, magnitude, rate of migration and full horizontal and vertical extent of the release, and identify its source or sources.
• Hazardous waste cleanups run until standards are met. After CDPHE approves the plan, the party with the release must carry out the alternative and collect samples to show it is working as designed. CDPHE says cleanup activities continue until cleanup standards are met.
• Less than unrestricted use means a covenant. On either track, a site that cannot be cleaned to an unrestricted use standard must have an environmental covenant that describes land use restrictions, operation and maintenance of engineering controls, and other requirements that stay with the property when it is sold. Look the site up on the environmental covenants list.
• CDPHE can compel the work. It says it has authority under the Solid Waste Act to ensure a solid waste cleanup is completed, and authority to issue a compliance order for a hazardous waste cleanup.

Interim status and permitted hazardous waste facilities are a separate case. CDPHE says they must clean up releases under the detailed procedures in the Colorado hazardous waste regulations. See Hazardous waste management sites and facilities.

The numbers a cleanup is measured against are on the Air, water and soil remedial objectives page, and closure with groundwater still above standards is on the Conditional closures page. CDPHE's guidance page links a corrective action guidance document, a corrective action plan application, guidance on dry cleaner remediation, and guidance on vapor intrusion and methane intrusion, among others.

Where to look a site up

• CDPHE's Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division links an interactive records map and a records search by address, site name, site ID and more.
• CDPHE cautions that having no file on a property does not necessarily mean the property is uncontaminated: contamination may not yet have been discovered or reported to it.
• The division's customer technical assistance line is 303-692-3320, and its mailbox is comments.hmwmd@state.co.us.

Getting the file

The division 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 cleanup
• Environmental cleanup guidance and policy
• How to find out if a site is contaminated
• Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division records review