Huh, in my energy industry experience, we always remediated sites. And set aside funding for it before any construction was done. The cost estimation and funding of it was part of the initial planning and approval. I thought it was mandatory and mostly did happen. Some quick research says it is legally required, but IANAL nor an expert.
Of course, that has not always been the case, and things falls through the cracks, but I would not immediately dismiss the entire industry as being non-compliant. I would dismiss the entire industry as flawed and needing change, but not on this specific point - it is vastly improved over past decades.
> Of course, that has not always been the case, and things falls through the cracks, but I would not immediately dismiss the entire industry as being non-compliant.
There's a point in time where this changed and permits needed at least a plausible expectation of remediation. If I had to guess that would have been late 1980s to mid 90s.
Most of the sites abandoned without remediation are from permits obtained before that time. I'm sure there's some cases where there was a setaside for remediation and it wasn't sufficient and the corporate entities involved went bankrupt, so it wasn't finished; but IMHO, most of the problem is older sites. Older sites also tend to have worse records, so there's that too.
Of course, that has not always been the case, and things falls through the cracks, but I would not immediately dismiss the entire industry as being non-compliant. I would dismiss the entire industry as flawed and needing change, but not on this specific point - it is vastly improved over past decades.