Delaware
Enforcement Orders
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) posts its enforcement orders on its Secretary's Orders pages. A Secretary's Order is a written decision by the Secretary of DNREC to take a final action on behalf of the Department, and it may apply to regulations, to permitting decisions, or to one of several types of enforcement actions. DNREC says its enforcement collection also includes some settlement agreements, and that where an order stems from a public hearing, a Hearing Officer's Report is included or attached.
In a Phase I ESA
ASTM E1527-21 does not name enforcement lists among its standard record sources. An enforcement record at a property is still worth reading, and the first job is to tell which kind of document it is.
| Document | What DNREC says it is |
|---|---|
| Notice of Administrative Penalty Assessment | Sets out the facts, background and findings of violations, and gives notice that DNREC intends to assess a monetary penalty based on them. |
| Notice of Conciliation | Sets out the facts, background and findings of violations, and prescribes actions the violator is required to take to come into compliance. |
| Secretary's Order | Orders the violator to take steps to correct violations by a deadline set in the order. |
| Cease and Desist Order | Instructs a violator to cease the offending conduct or activity immediately. |
| Imminent Hazard Order | Used when there is an imminent threat to human health or the environment involving the transportation, treatment or disposal of hazardous wastes; it directs owners or operators of hazardous waste facilities or sites to eliminate the threat in a set time. |
Tank cases have steps of their own. DNREC's tanks page says a facility with unresolved violations after the time set in a written notice, such as a Request for Information letter or a Corrective Action Warning letter, may face enforcement. Its tools include a Notice of Violation, a delivery prohibition, referral to the Environmental Crimes Unit, or a Secretary's Enforcement Order.
Where to look a site up
- DNREC's Enforcement Orders page lists orders and related documents by date, with links to the documents and summaries of the cases.
- DNREC describes its Environmental Enforcement Actions search as a searchable listing of all environmental enforcement actions. It also links a listing of Criminal Environmental Enforcement Actions from environmental offenses in the past 90 days, and a listing of Past Administrative and Civil Enforcement Actions from 1994 to mid-2001.
- DNREC's FOIA page describes the Delaware Environmental Navigator as a database of core environmental data and permitting and enforcement information.
Getting the file
The order itself is linked from the Enforcement Orders page. For other records of the case, the enforcement pages read do not give a records route of their own. DNREC's FOIA page says the Delaware Freedom of Information Act ensures public access to public records held by DNREC; the route is on the DNREC FOIA Requests page.
Sources
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control pages, read October 13, 2026:
- Secretary's Orders, last modified January 9, 2024.
- Enforcement Orders, last modified October 7, 2026.
- Types of Enforcement Orders, last modified December 30, 2025.
- Tanks Compliance, last modified August 25, 2025.
- Doing Business With DNREC Online, last modified April 13, 2026.
- DNREC FOIA Requests, last modified September 14, 2026.