Soil quality as a local issue

Several European countries have national legislations that make it possible to enforce soil investigation and remediation. These legislations could be grouped into three general models:

• the site specific risk approach
• the generic precautionary approach
• the tiered approach to soil contamination

The site specific risk approach

A site specific risk approach is used by countries that have:

• A small area with potential soil contamination and a large area of natural soils. There is no urgency for specific soil quality legislation. A generic environmental protection act sets the soil protection on a generic level. Soil investigation starts when a site is suspected of having contamination problems and as a matter of course before any closure of operations on site (e.g. the Scandinavian countries)
• Soil is considered as an aspect of the land use policy. Soil investigation or remediation will be triggered when there is a suspicion of serious harm to landusers and/or a site could not honour their operating permits, or when there is a commercial transfer of property. (e.g. UK & Ireland)
• The political attention for soil contamination issues is low and/or legislation is generic and difficult to implement and/or implementation is delegated to local authorities. Soil investigation and remediation is triggered by obvious risks for health or environment, pressure of the public or the transfer of property. (e.g. many eastern European countries).
  The actual effort in soil investigation & remediation is often driven by the available funding. When sites are investigated, decision-making is based on a site-specific risk approach.

The generic precautionary approach

Many countries have environmental protection legislation on a strategic level. For air and surface waters it is based on emission thresholds. For soil and groundwater is based on the precautionary principle (zero emission). The European Water Framework Directive will co-ordinate the objectives, monitoring and management of the national legislations. The precautionary principle for groundwater had widespread support among the Member States.

The tiered approach to soil quality

The tiered approach to soil quality is based on three steps:

• Generic monitoring of soil quality using historical data and reference thresholds. The result is a list of potentially contaminated sites.
• Site specific investigation and risk assessment.
• Remediation action plan, based on risks and a time-cost planning.

The tiered approach to soil quality is very similar to the site specific approach when the focus is on a single contaminated site. The main difference is that there is an obligation to assess the soil quality on all sites with a potential risk of contamination. This results in large lists of sites that are not in compliance with referential threshold values and should be controlled or remediated. Because the status of individual sites on the list of contaminated sites depends on threshold values, the logic behind the threshold values often is debated. This logic could be based on a ‘fit-for-use’ argument. In a fit-for-use argument threshold values will be more strict when the use is for a residential area or protected nature reserve than on an industrial site. The logic of the threshold values could also be based on the ‘good status for the environment’. In this argument ecologic and toxicological data determine the threshold value.

Germany and the Netherlands both have tiered approaches to soil quality and a history of public debates on the threshold values. Both countries have strict values for new contaminations (in line with the precautionary principle) and a more practical fit-for-use strategy with historical contamination. In Germany the Bundesländer have their own specific regulations, while the local authorities are responsible for the actual site investigations and remediation. In the Netherlands a recent change of policy gives more responsibilities to the local level.

In Germany, a special situation exists that many (former) industrial areas in the east were included in an exemption regulation. After the merge of East and West Germany in 1989, the German federal state reserved funds and established organisations to manage and remediate these megasites. One of these organisations responsible of the megasites in the state of Sachsen Anhalt, LAF, is partner in the Welcome project.

Future developments on national level

Soil and groundwater remediation on a national level will be influenced by the WFD and the Groundwater Directive. Somehow the more pragmatic practice of site-specific risk assessments as a basis for decision-making and the ‘good groundwater status’ of the WFD must be brought together. On a megasite level, IMS is believed to be a good instrument where the pragmatic needs on the local level can be connected to the general principles of the WFD and GWD.