Oregon

Confirmed Release List (CRL) and Inventory of Hazardous Substance Sites

Agency Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

Oregon Confirmed Release List (CRL) and Inventory of Hazardous Substance Sites

Oregon law requires the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to maintain two lists of hazardous substance sites for public notification: the Confirmed Release List (CRL) and the Inventory of Hazardous Substance Sites. The CRL is a list of sites with documented releases of hazardous substances. The Inventory is a subset of the CRL: contaminated sites where a preliminary assessment or its equivalent has been completed and where further investigation or cleanup is needed to protect human health and the environment.

In a Phase I ESA

This handbook pairs the two lists with the state equivalent to the federal Superfund lists, which ASTM E1527-21 names as a standard source. The pairing is the handbook's reading: DEQ does not use the word Superfund for either list, and describes them as the lists of hazardous substance sites that state law requires it to maintain for public notification. The general reading of a state Superfund listing is on the state Superfund equivalent page. Six Oregon details shape how to read a listing.

Listing takes a confirmed release, and some releases are excluded. DEQ gives two criteria for the CRL. The release was documented by qualified observation, owner or operator admission, or laboratory data. And the release was not excluded from listing by being insignificant in quantity or hazard, regulated by another program, adequately cleaned up or otherwise requiring no further action. Do not read a site's absence from the CRL as the absence of a release.
The Inventory marks sites that need more. DEQ says it added sites to the Inventory where further investigation was required, or where removal, remedial action, or engineering or institutional controls were needed, based on a preliminary assessment or its equivalent that DEQ approved or conducted. It says what separates Inventory sites from CRL-only sites is the degree of knowledge DEQ had about on-site contamination and the threats it may pose.
Owners are heard first. Before adding a site to either list, DEQ notified owners and operators of its intent and allowed 45 days for comment, which could be extended by another 45 days on request. It then sent a listing decision letter that answered the comments. The proposal, the comments and the decision letter are documents to ask for.
Coming off takes finished work and public comment. DEQ says it removed sites when all necessary investigation or other remedial action had been completed and after a public comment period of at least 30 days. An owner, operator or other person could also petition the Director to remove a facility.
Sites with controls stay on. DEQ says that by law, sites at which it selects or approves engineering or institutional controls as part of a cleanup must remain on the CRL and Inventory, even where DEQ has made a no-further-action determination. A listed site can therefore be a finished one; see Institutional and Engineering Controls.
The lists moved with the database. DEQ says the two lists were subsets of the Environmental Cleanup Site Information database, which was retired on April 16, 2024, and that the data was migrated to Your DEQ Online. Its page describes the listing steps in the present tense in one section and, in another, in the past tense as the process used for that database only. The page does not say how a site's CRL or Inventory status is shown in Your DEQ Online. Where the status matters, ask DEQ.

DEQ says listing decisions in most cases start from a recommendation by its Site Assessment Program. It cites Oregon Revised Statute 465.405 for the Confirmed Release List and Oregon Revised Statute 465.245 for preliminary assessments.

Where to look a site up

For a list of environmental cleanup projects, DEQ points to the Your DEQ Online All Sites Report.
One site at a time, the Your DEQ Online Public Records Portal.
DEQ's Site Assessment page refers to a listing fact sheet for the criteria and the listing process. The fact sheet was not read for this page.
The Environmental Cleanup Program is at Cleanup.ResolutionCenter@DEQ.oregon.gov and 1-800-452-4011.

Getting the file

DEQ says it is working to make more of its public records available online, and that a reader who cannot find the information should go to its public records request page. The route is described on the Your DEQ Online and public records requests page.

Sources

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality pages, read October 7, 2026, no modified date shown: