75-11-602. Definitions. - Montana Statutes

     75-11-602. Definitions. For purposes of this part, the following definitions apply:
     (1) "Department" means the department of environmental quality provided for in 2-15-3501.
     (2) (a) "Release" means any spilling, leaking, emitting, discharging, escaping, leaching, or disposing of petroleum or petroleum products from a petroleum storage tank into ground water, surface water, surface soils, or subsurface soils that occurred from a petroleum storage tank, as defined in 75-11-302.
     (b) The term does not include a release from the following petroleum storage tanks:
     (i) a tank located at a refinery or a terminal of a refiner;
     (ii) a tank located at an oil and gas production facility; or
     (iii) a tank that is or was previously under the ownership or control of a railroad, except for a tank that was operated by a lessee of a railroad in the course of nonrailroad operations.
     (3) "Restoration damages" means the amount of compensation determined necessary by a trier of fact to restore a contaminated special use property to its function and use prior to the contamination upon which a common law claim is based. The term includes reasonable attorney fees and costs incurred by the plaintiff.
     (4) "Special use property" means real property contaminated by a release from a petroleum storage tank, as defined in 75-11-302, that is found by a trier of fact to have personal value to the plaintiff not reflected in the market value of the property or to have unique public, historic, cultural, or religious value not reflected in the market value of the property.

     History: En. Sec. 2, Ch. 409, L. 2009.