[HISTORY: Adopted by the Board of Supervisors of the Township of
Lancaster as indicated in article histories. Amendments noted where applicable.]
[Adopted 9-11-2000 by Ord. No. 2000-4]
Lancaster Township, by and through its authority and relationship with
the fire companies, hereby recognizes the authority of the fire companies
which respond to incidents within the township to recover reasonable costs
associated with fire fighting, equipment use, personnel hours, and hazardous
abatement material involving any hazardous material incident, environmental
incident, or safety and rescue incident or operation, including vehicular
accidents.
Such fire company responses are either directly, via 911 response, or
in coordination with an emergency management agency, and may on occasion involve
the use of hazardous material abatement equipment and/or hazardous abatement
material.
It is the intention of Lancaster Township to recognize the authority
of fire companies to seek collection and reimbursement from the entity or
person who caused the incident, or their insurance carrier, for the reasonable
costs of responding to such incidents, either directly or in coordination
with an emergency management agency.
Reasonable response costs may be recovered by the fire companies or
by a fire company agreement with other authorized agents for collection of
reasonable costs. The utilization of a collection agency shall be for those
situations deemed by a collection agency as appropriate for collection through
the agency, principally those incidents involving hazardous abatement material
and/or incidents directly involving an agency.
In addition to the aforementioned reasonable response costs, the fire
companies, Lancaster Township, or an agency shall be authorized to collect
interest up to the legal rate of interest, as well as reasonable administrative
and legal fees for collecting same, and any and all additional fees as may
be authorized by the Hazardous Material Emergency Planning and Response Act[1] or authorized by any other statute, case law, or common law.
[1]
Editor's Note: See 35 P.S. § 6022.101 et seq.
Fees and fee schedules shall be reasonable and suggested by the fire
companies with approval by the Lancaster Township Board of Supervisors.
