Environmental Covenants

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) describes an environmental covenant as a deed restriction on a parcel of land that meets Maine's Uniform Environmental Covenants Act, 38 MRS §§ 3001 to 3013. DEP says covenants are often used as part of a remedy at a contaminated site where cleanup for unrestricted use is not feasible, placing limits on land use so that people are less exposed to the contamination.

In a Phase I ESA

This handbook reads environmental covenants as the Maine form of the state institutional and engineering control records that ASTM E1527-21 lists as a standard source. The reading is ours: DEP names no registry of controls as such. What DEP does publish is its Division of Remediation Sites List, which DEP says includes whether a property has institutional controls, and its GIS map of remediation sites, which it names the Remediation Sites (Institutional Controls) Database. The general reading of a controls registry is on the State/Tribal Institutional and Engineering Control Registries page. Three Maine details help.

• The covenant is recorded at the registry of deeds. DEP says any final certification under the Voluntary Response Action Program (VRAP) that relies on institutional or engineering controls as part of the remedy requires the applicant to record a Declaration of Environmental Covenant with the appropriate registry of deeds, and that VRAP must approve the declaration before it is final. Search the registry of deeds for the declaration, not only DEP's list.
• A partial cleanup brings a restriction. DEP's VRAP issue profile gives the example of a party that remediates contaminated soils but not contaminated groundwater, and says DEP would then require a land use restriction, such as a Declaration of Restrictive Covenant under 38 M.R.S. § 3001 et seq. Where a VRAP file shows a partial cleanup, look for the covenant.
• DEP publishes the wording it expects. DEP posts a standard environmental covenant template for non-VRAP sites and a VRAP template, each with subordination agreement templates for a mortgage and for an easement. DEP says the VRAP template holds boilerplate language that will appear in any document consistent with statute, and that each VRAP declaration must be modified for the site and reviewed by VRAP and/or the Attorney General's Office before it is finalized.

DEP's description of the Sites List names six programs: Brownfields, Federal Facilities, Municipal Landfill Closure & Remediation, Superfund, Uncontrolled Sites and VRAP. The pages read do not say whether controls at sites in other programs are recorded in it.

Where to look a site up

• The Division of Remediation Sites List is linked from the File Room, Reports and Lists page as a spreadsheet and a PDF, with a guidance document on the list.
• DEP's GIS Maps and Other Data Files page maps the Remediation Sites (Institutional Controls) Database, with data refreshed every Saturday night.
• This handbook did not open the list, the guidance document or the map.

Getting the file

DEP says the declaration itself is recorded with "the appropriate registry of deeds". DEP's file on the site, including the cleanup the covenant rests on, follows the remediation records route: DEP's online remediation documents portal and the file room, by appointment at (207) 287-7843. See File Room, Reports and Lists.

Sources

Maine Department of Environmental Protection pages, read October 13, 2026:

• Remediation Program Guidance, no modified date shown.
• Voluntary Response Action Program (VRAP), no modified date shown.
• DEP Issue Profile for VRAP, dated March 2018 at its head, with a later note on the fall of 2025.
• File Room, Reports, Scanned Documents and Lists, no modified date shown.
• GIS Maps & Other Data Files, no modified date shown.