Land Use Controls (LUCs)

Land Use Controls (LUCs)* may consist of non-engineered instruments, such as administrative and legal controls or engineered and physical barriers, such as fences and security guards. LUCs help to minimize the potential for exposure to contamination and/or protect the integrity of a response action and are typically designed to work by limiting land and/or resource use or by providing information that helps modify or guide human behavior at a site.

LUCs may be used when contamination is first discovered, when remedies are ongoing and when residual contamination remains onsite at a level that does not allow for unrestricted use and unlimited exposure after cleanup. The National Contingency Plan (NCP) emphasizes that LUCs are meant to supplement engineering controls and that LUCs should rarely be the sole remedy at a site.

*The federal facility program may also use the term Institutional Controls (ICs).

• List of EPA IC Guidance
• Sample Federal Facility Land Use Control ROD Checklist with Suggested Language (LUC Checklist), OSWER Directive 9355.6-12 - January 2013 EPA Regional programs are responsible for ensuring that land use controls (LUCs) or ICs are properly documented for federal facility NPL sites and some BRAC sites. The LUC Checklist provides direction on describing and documenting land use controls (LUCs) in federal facility response actions under CERCLA in Records of Decision (RODs), remedial designs (RDs), and remedial action work plans (RAWPs). The LUC Checklist also provides recommended language for creating enforceable LUC requirements in these documents to ensure the protectiveness of CERCLA remedies.