New Mexico
Corrective Action Fund (CAF)
The New Mexico Corrective Action Fund (CAF) pays for the investigation and cleanup of releases from petroleum storage tanks. The Petroleum Storage Tank Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) manages it. The money comes from a fee that wholesale distributors of petroleum products pay at the loading dock on every 8,000-gallon load; the Bureau's reimbursement Q&A gives the fee as $150 a load.
In a Phase I ESA
ASTM E1527-21 does not name tank cleanup fund records among its standard record sources. The fund matters because of what it pays for and how: NMED says it covers initial abatement, the minimum site assessment, investigation of soil and water, monitoring while the work goes on, remediation with its operation and maintenance, and monitoring after remediation, and that every cost must be approved by the department before it can be paid. Where a release on or near the property was cleaned up with fund money, ask whether the file holds the minimum site assessment and the work plans the costs were approved against. The release itself is on the Active Leaking and No Further Action Sites page.
Who the fund pays, and when NMED leads
The Q&A sets three conditions for an owner or operator to draw on the fund:
- a petroleum release from a storage tank has been reported to the regulatory agency and confirmed by it (the Q&A names federal facilities and facilities on tribal lands as an exception here, without saying more);
- a regulatory agency requires the owner or operator to take corrective action because of that release;
- the owner or operator is in substantial compliance with the Bureau's regulations, a condition the Q&A lifts for the minimum site assessment.
The owner or operator generally pays the first $10,000 of the minimum site assessment. A reduced $5,000 or a zero deductible can be asked for on grounds of inability to pay, with a letter, federal tax returns for the two or three years before, and other financial records, sent before or with the minimum site assessment work plan. Payments are made under the Ground Water Protection Act. Where owner and operator are different persons, only one must meet the reimbursement rules, but NMED says both are liable if they are not met.
NMED takes the lead on high priority sites where the owner and operator are unknown, unwilling or unable to do the corrective action, and the fund page links a State Lead Claim Form.
What can hold a cleanup up
The fund page warns that its cash balance is not an accurate measure of what is available, because money committed to a cleanup, which the page says usually takes years, cannot go to anything else. It says the unobligated balance is the better measure, that no new cleanup can start when that balance runs too low, and that state and federal law keep $1 million in reserve for emergencies. Where a release shows no recent work, ask whether a cleanup has started rather than reading a quiet file as a finished one.
The Bureau's reports page adds that loans from the State Clean Water Revolving Fund may be available to replace, remove or upgrade tanks or to clean up releases.
Where to look a site up
The pages read link no list of the sites the fund has paid for. The Corrective Action Fund page links the claim forms, a notice of changes required for reimbursement claims dated 8/21/2025, a pamphlet titled CAF Pamphlet: Processes for Payment from the Corrective Action Fund, and fund reports for fiscal years 2019 to 2022, which this handbook did not open. The Bureau's line is 505-476-4397, and its mailbox for correspondence other than test reports is PSTB.Inbox@env.nm.gov.
Getting the file
NMED takes records requests under the Inspection of Public Records Act through its Public Records Requests page: by its online portal, which needs no account, by mail to P.O. Box 5469, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502, or by telephone at (505) 827-2855. The Public records requests page here gives what a request must hold and the fees.
Sources
New Mexico Environment Department pages, read October 13, 2026, no modified date shown: