COMMON FORUM on Contaminated land in the European Union 21st September 2010 Salzburg, Austria

Transcription

1 COMMON FORUM on Contaminated land in the European Union 21st September 2010 Salzburg, Austria Meeting Report Common Forum Meeting Report 1/14

2 The Salzburg meeting was attended by: Ana Alzola (Spain / Basque Country) Anne Andersson (Sweden) Birgitta Beuthe (Belgium) Andreas Bieber (Germany) Marijke Cardon (Belgium) Tom Coles (United Kingdom) Dominique Darmendrail (COMMON FORUM) Joerg Frauenstein(Germany) Rudolf Gasparovic (Slovakia) Roman Hangac (Slovakia) Gabor Hasznos (Hungary) Harald Kasamas (Austria) Fantine Lefévre (France) Leanid Maskalchuk (Belarus) Kine Martinsen (Norway) Co Molenaar (Netherlands) Dietmar Muller (Austria) Paul Nathanail (CABERNET) Anna-Maija Pajukallio (Finland) Anja Sinke (NICOLE) Joop Vegter (COMMON FORUM) This meeting was reduced to a one-day discussion ahead of CONSOIL 2010 on the first day of which the CF organised a Special session on EU Soil legal issues: how to move forward?. 5 October, 2010 Dr Dominique Darmendrail Common Forum Meeting Report 2/14

3 MEETING REPORT Note: Handouts of all presentations from this meeting are available for download at Session 0 CF Secretary Follow-up The current secretariat started in September 2008 for a three years period. Before the final meeting under this contracting phase it was necessary to discuss and review: the secretariat tasks, the needs of evolution and developments, the financial issues in relation with these proposals. The main tasks of the CF secretariat are: a. preparing and organizing 2 CF meetings per year, b. being the formal speaker on behalf of Common Forum, c. taking care of communication and information exchange, d. elaborating activities reports. All CF members present at the meeting were generally very satisfied with the secretariat. They agreed to continue the secretariat project and continue with the current secretary. They appreciated the current work and some possibilities for improvement and development of additional tasks were discussed: a. To achieve a better balance between legal and technical discussions during the meetings, b. To draft conceptual or technical documents within CF or in collaboration with other networks, for supporting the discussion with the European Commission and the comitology work, c. How to maintain good contacts with all EC representatives acting on soil management, d. Additional tasks: I. Organization of teleconferences by the secretariat for steering some CF activities such validation of documents, official answers to EC, etc. II. The CF secretariat could also act as a ongoing secretariat for ICCL meetings to replace the current rotating system, III. Active contribution to EUGRIS (updating of country information sheets, participation to peer-reviewed papers, publication of discussion papers ). Concerning the financial issues the question was raised whether CF could contribute financially to EUGRIS to keep this web portal alive. This discussion was not conclusive but given the current situation in the countries participating in CF there are Common Forum Meeting Report 3/14

4 already some uncertainties for maintaining financial contribution to maintain the CF secretariat at the same level. More information will available in the following months when the 2011 budgets will be established. The secretariat will prepare a short paper describing the current financing situation and additional costs related to the tasks discussed above. For some countries it is not possible to fund an international CF secretariat even if established as a three year project. Some alternative options for them to support the network will be explored in the next months, such as hosting and organising future meetings and funding of technical documents (e.g. development of a concept of a fourth generation of legal framework based on sustainable risk based land management, best practices for soil monitoring in relation with the new requirement of the Industrial Emissions Directive, baseline report content). Additional topic: the Hungarian red mud accident raised the question of a relevant action plan. This could be also developed within a specific CF project. Finally the question was raised whether participation in CF meetings could be improved by offering support for travel and accommodation to representatives from countries which have no national budget for CF activities. In general this would not be feasible, although some countries hosting meetings or countries having special partnerships with new EU member states could find some budget to invite an occasional guest. Session A: Welcome Harald Kasamas opened the Autumn meeting on behalf of the Austrian Ministry for Environment (BMU). This meeting was attended by new representatives from: Sweden, Anne Andersson, from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Belarus, Leanid Maskalchuk., from the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Session B: Country tour de table Austria latest developments H. Kasamas (BMU): Austria is currently adapting its legal framework for managing contaminated land. The cleanup act (ALSAG) was implemented in 1989 after a major incident which attracted media attention (landfill site Fischer Deponie, m 3 mixed waste, valuable aquifer planned for drinking water supply, cleanup costs 140 mio.). ALSAG focuses particularly on creating the necessary funds to enable remediation activities at high risk sites in Austria. This is done with a levy on waste treatment. From the revenue, site investigation measures and cleanup costs are funded. Over the past 20 years, the income from this levy was 990 mio. in total earmarked for CLM measures. With this budget we have: Common Forum Meeting Report 4/14

5 * identified potentially polluted sites (based on site history alone) through systematic surveys (we estimate a total of sites) * registered suspected sites (based on certain probabilty of contamination) (we estimate a total of sites) * performed 500 site investigations and risk assessments * remediated 200 sites, corresponding to 145 ha of properties returned into economic cycle (we estimate a total of sites high risk sites eligible for ALSAG funds) * estimated that we need a further 5-6 billion (based on RBLM principles) Facing this high amount of sites to deal with in the future and facing decreasing incomes we need an adaptation of our system in order to reach our goals. With a collaborative project including all stakeholders we defined the following objectives and principles of the future Contaminated Land Management (CLM) strategy in Austria. This has been transposed in a political mission paper which will form a basis for a future revision of ALSAG: 1) the inventory of historically contaminated sites shall be completed within one generation (2025), 2) measures (decontamination, containment, monitoring and land use restrictions) at seriously contaminated sites shall be completed within two generations (2050), 3) risk assessments have to be based on site specific and land use related conditions, 4) risk management measures should take site specific and land use related conditions into account. Risks for human health and the environment must be adequately managed (note: basis is the Risk Based Land Management concept as elaborated by CLARINET), 5) Remediation measures (decontamination, containment) need to be sustainable with lasting effects to enhance the environmental status of a site, 6) Framing conditions for reusing and integrating contaminated sites back into economic cycle shall be improved. To support the implementation of these objectives and principles, a three-year project was launched in 2008 with the aim of developing technical and practical tools (guidelines for human health risk assessment, risk-based screening values, guidelines for characterisation of the unsaturated zone and the groundwater risk assessment, report on environmental economics of remediation projects, platform on sustainable remediation technologies). Romania / New Soil Strategy D. Darmendrail on behalf of N. Heredea: A new Soil Strategy has been drafted and will be presented for critical analysis and public debate in the following months, according with the national procedure for approval of public documents. National Strategy for the Management of C Common Forum Meeting Report 5/14

6 If there are any comments / contributions, please contact our Romanian colleague, Nicolae Heredea. In parallel two technical guidance documents (one on investigation of contaminated sites, one on the promotion of environmental remediation projects) have been elaborated. They will be translated into English after their formal approval. UK request on Nano Iron use: An international team led by CL:AIRE has been commissioned by DEFRA to review the risks and benefits of nano scale iron use in remediation. For more information about this project: The literature review should be completed by information coming for key international networks and initiatives, with a special interest on following issues: - policy or regulatory viewpoints? - your thoughts on the balance of risks and benefits Would it be possible to ask these questions of your members? - Where and in what dimension this is of interest at your national/regional level? Short updates from other Countries: o The Netherlands : Because of a lack of space, the Netherlands have made a vision on how to use subsoil. It is an agenda setting document and has been recently published (it is not available in English yet). It has not been discussed in the parliament yet. The Dutch Ministry has also documented lessons learnt about soil during the last thirties years (the subjects are soil policy, organisation and other technical issues). It is on the orange clog-shaped USB-stick distributed at the meeting (also available on CF website at: o United Kingdom: The Code of Practice on the Investigation of Potentially Contaminated Sites (BS 10175) is being updated. Key documents on contaminated land management in Scotland and Wales are currently being reviewed. In England a public consultation on the revision to the Statutory Guidance (Secondary law) on Contaminated Land will be organised in November/December 2010 around the followings: Common Forum Meeting Report 6/14

7 - Focus on highly risky sites? How to apply the precautionary principle on such sites? - How to structure / balance actions? - How to manage EU directives in the national legal framework (e.g. the Water Directive)? - How to include sustainable remediation in the national approach? o Germany: The Governing Council of UNEP in its 25th session agreed that the intergovernmental negotiating committee [ ] is to develop a comprehensive and suitable approach to mercury, including provisions [ ] (f) to address mercurycontaining waste and remediation of contaminated sites. The EU is preparing a European position for the 2 nd meeting of the International Negotiation Committee (January 2011, Japan). Germany was asked (and accepted) to take over the function of a lead country (LC) for the item of (mercury) contaminated sites. The task will be to prepare such a position. A proposal will be distributed within CF in mid-october. Contact point: Andreas Bieber (Andreas.Bieber@bmu.bund.de). o Wallonia: Wallonia is preparing guidelines on feasibility studies (appraisal and selection of remediation solutions) and would like to take into consideration international best practices in this field. All contributions in French, English and Dutch can be sent to Birgitta Beuthe (b.beuthe@spaque.be). o Finland: Finland is facing a specific contamination problem related to outdoor shooting ranges and hunting areas and would like to exchange ideas with other colleagues on the BAT techniques for preventive protection techniques and also remediating such contaminated sites. Contact point: Anna-Maija Pajukallio (Anna- Maija.Pajukallio@ymparisto.fi). USA, Switzerland, Germany /Bavaria and Norway were mentioned in the discussion. Session C: Update on the European Agenda Soil Framework Directive: Discussions around the options for moving forward started in Trieste. Even if the SFD is not at the Belgian Presidency agenda, CF Belgian members presented new ideas elaborated during summer time (see M. Cardon s presentation). The Salzburg meeting discussions are summarised below; Why do we need a directive? Common Forum Meeting Report 7/14

8 - need for a frame establishing common environmental objectives 1, - common levels of protection in MS, - A trigger to help new countries in developing soil policy and to potential refinements in other EU countries. The added value of the proposed directive should be clear. General issues: The directive should focus on what to achieve rather than how to do it. It should not describe detailed technical requirements (e.g. inventories, soil status report, soil values). Make it simple without too many extras at the moment. Make the directive a Framework directive and don t put guidelines in the legislation. Should discuss and provide a frame for environmental objectives (such as Art. 4 of the Water Framework Directive - WFD) and general principles for soil policy. Keep in mind that Soil strategy is more than just the SFD. We do need more integration of the existing EU legislation (e.g. with river basin management plans of the WFD) and action plans having soil provisions. Air, Water and soil are parts of the same living system. If we want a comprehensive SFD, it should also integrate non-covered issues (e.g. climate change, biodiversity). But it could not be easily accepted if tackling all soil issues. Achieving short term requirements on Soil contamination (threat from soil, different from the other listed threats in the Soil Strategy which are threats to Soil) or specific sector (e.g. urban soil quality & land planning, in parallel of the IED and discussion on the CAP) could be more efficient. Common environmental objectives and principles could also serve for developing our national approaches even if there is no Soil Directive. Our main comments are now focused on the current Chapter III Contamination. Investigation procedure: There is a general consensus about the proposal of prioritisation. It should be done in an early stage of the procedure (you do not have to investigate and report all sites where activities have taken place in the past), following a set of transparent criteria which should be in line and refer to the key principles of a SFD (see above). This set should be established in detail on MS level. Currently far too many innocent sites would be caught as potential sites, which makes the process inefficient and undermines efforts to deal with problematic sites. If there is going to be a Directive, we need to find a way to prioritise sites that might actually be a problem. The inventory should be a living tool to reflect the reality of dealing with contaminated sites and to allow for evolving scientific understanding. Sites may crop up from time to time. Therefore it s not right to have a time scale for achieving this inventory. 1 In principle this aims at protecting soil s capacities and functions, recognizing soil as a natural resource, to enable sustainable development of European societies. The focus to environmental objectives follows the ideas that economic social aspects and objectives are covered through other policies at EC or MS level (e.g. agriculture; spatial planning) Common Forum Meeting Report 8/14

9 Instead a cyclic approach (like the one existing in the WFD) for sites/regional management plans could be proposed. The time scale should be on reporting. The investigation should focus on priority sites. In both events everyone agreed on the need of prioritisation. Having such an approach should avoid long-term blight while they are investigated over 25 years and to spend money for identifying and investigating low risk sites. Moreover investigation is a shared responsibility action which needs to respect liability rules (polluter pays principles versus orphan sites). Focusing on historic activities (cf. annex II) is not an indicator of risk but of potential hazard. From the very start of the process there should be consideration of other criteria. For example, it should consider the scale and duration of historic activity; the nature of the possible contaminants (e.g. are they likely still to be present?); factors around the current land use that would have a bearing on potential risks; whether the site has already been assessed; and whether it has already been remediated. We should then classify into priority of risks according to likelihood of Source-Pathways- Sensitive Target or conceptual model. The Directive should require that Member States establish criteria for identifying and prioritising sites, but it is very important that the detailed criteria for this procedure should be defined in MS legislation (for taking into consideration local conditions). MS legal disposition / national procedure: Each MS should develop and implement a proper risk based approach on priority sites on which they could apply 25 year timetable (Commission request). This national legal framework should comprise: Determination of the investigation procedure triggers. Determination of the transfer mechanism of responsibility/liability. Definition of remediation objectives, Content of the Soil Status report Risks (on site and taking into consideration off-site impacts) should be managed for the short, medium and long-terms. There are many ways of doing this. The National policy should also specify how they will tackle low risk sites, even if they are not a high priority. The main objective is to manage risks properly, for example reducing (if not eliminating) risks at high risk sites. Sites, but also areas of concern, should be managed in a proper way (e.g. riskbased, cost-effective and sustainable). Some experienced countries already act at a more regional scale on several individual sites in an integrative management plan, with information of sites owners. New elements/techniques should be possible for taking into consideration development/ BATNEEC. There is a need of discussion for setting the targets to protect (Human Health, ecosystems, water resources, etc.). Common Forum Meeting Report 9/14

10 Soil Status report: Member States should have flexibility to require SSRs either when a property is bought/sold, or when there is a change of land use. It could be also done in other circumstances like a) applying for an environmental permit (as a component of the baseline report required by the Industrial Emissions Directive IED) or b) when substantial excavation / construction works are undertaken (in relation with the revised Waste Directive). The Soil Status Report (if any) should not be tied to past conditions (e.g. former activities, former pollution), but to current condition (current residual risks) for informing the site users. Its implementation for small sites / houses could be problematic. Just does not stack up to make normal citizens to pay for a SSR every 10 years. If nothing happened since the last SSR, should we ask for a new report (new investigation) or new approval/certificate? There is uncertainty on the aim and the content of the SSR (report on the available information or safe & fit for use certificate). This should be stated. Information to public: Publicity of the list of high risky sites (and not on sites having a SSR). Article 17: MS should share experiences for a better efficiency of the legislation. Finally, a few of the CF members specified their fear for legally binding rules for risk assessment under comitology. Conclusions: These results will be reported to European Commission by our CF Belgian colleagues. In parallel CF will prepare a Statement paper on this issue for publication. Mining Waste Directive (2006/21/EC) / Soil related issues: As decided during the CF meeting in Trieste (July 2010), the CF questionnaire on article 20 of the Mining waste Directive has been circulated. Denmark and Belgium / Flanders already reported that this issue is not of really concern for their country / region, Information on the situation in Ireland, Czech Republic, England and France was received. Sweden and Spain answers are announced. Common Forum Meeting Report 10/14

11 Session 4: CF Secretariat Actions Feedback from the Trieste Joint Workshop (July 2010): The objectives of this CF NICOLE Joint workshop were to review the recent European legislation and policy developments and to assess their effects on contaminated land management in EU Member States. Several policy documents were discussed during the workshop: the revised Waste Directive, the upcoming Industrial Emissions Directive (IED - which will replace the IPPC), the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD), the Water Framework Directive and its Groundwater Daughter Directive, and finally the proposal of Soil Protection Directive still under discussion. The workshop showed that there are some unintended consequences on soil management, resulting from interactions between different legislative fields which are not primarily concerned with soil, such as: a. ELD: weak link between operator s activities and damage he can be held liable for, b. IED: comparing site conditions against baseline situation, considerable monitoring requirements, c. Conflicting and uncertain interactions between REACH and the Waste Framework Directive, especially about the possibility of treated soils falling under the provisions of the REACH Regulation. One of the options, which could mitigate these unintended consequences, is a Soil FD. Therefore, NICOLE and COMMON FORUM intend to discuss the current state of affairs in the development of the Soil FD, with the aim to reach agreement on suggestions on how to move forward. These discussions could include: a. Comparing pro s and con s of different policy strategies, for example comparing developing a separate Directive with a more structural integration of the soil topic in existing policies; b. Views on how the Soil FD should relate to countries at different stages in the evolution of their domestic soil policies; c. Perhaps focusing on threats rather than dealing with all threats in one Directive. However, if contamination is to be in the Soil FD then the drafting has to really reflect the current state of the art, taking into account risk based land management and sustainable remediation philosophies; d. Considering that the sustainability of legislation is considered e.g. are there wider (perhaps unintended) impacts from the Soil FD in the way it approaches inventories etc. The COMMON FORUM and NICOLE would like to discuss these consequences with decision makers at EU and national levels Common Forum Questionnaires: The national answers to the ELD and legal regulatory framework in Member States are now available on line on the Common Forum Website. Country representatives can verify their national pages and ask for modifications. Common Forum Meeting Report 11/14

12 Collaboration with SNOWMAN: Following the discussion in Trieste the collaboration started around the following actions: fine-tuning of the scope of the third SNOWMAN call focused on Soil contamination, sustainable agriculture and forestry, soil indicators; a seat in the SNOWMAN advisory board for CF which advises the Network Steering Group. CF secretariat has been invited to the November 2010 AB meeting; Collaboration for a Special Session at CONSOIL 2010 on Knowledge dissemination. During the following months we will also discussed the proposal of SNOWMAN to coorganise in 2012 a joint workshop on research gaps. Collaboration with SEDNET Preliminary discussions started this week with the European network dedicated to Sediments management, SEDNET. Collaboration could begin on: elaboration of common technical guidance documents on how to address sediments in contaminated land management or on how to integrate riskbased management of the (ground)water sediment soil system at the basin scale and CLM, contribution to the Venice International conference in Brainstorming on Sustainable remediation, in cooperation with NICOLE: Several actions related to sustainable remediation are on-going: i) discussion with NICOLE for developing a road map and a guidance document for this concept (cf. Anja Sinke s presentation), ii) discussions with US-EPA, SURF, SURF-UK, and EURODEMO+ for identifying the needs of future actions. NICOLE started to work on this issue in 2008 with the launch of a specific working group including active members from industry, consultants and academics. The main outcomes of the two years brainstorming are the followings: Sustainable Remediation is not a technical issue; Communication is Number one barrier and enabler (Building trust with non technical experts is key); There are conflicting interests between Liability Management, or Risk Assessment, and Sustainable Remediation. Therefore there is a need to assess how much room is available in existing legislation; Efficiency: how can we measure and demonstrate sustainability? Metrics (economic tools, indicators ) should be developed; To do so, a Bottom-up approach is the best way (start implementing to educate practitioners). Common Forum Meeting Report 12/14

13 The NICOLE roadmap is available at Common Forum being a network of policy makers is requested by the other stakeholder communities to contribute to the development of this new concept. This could be done via the elaboration of a Joint (with NICOLE? or even wider?) Statement Paper or the contribution to CEN Workshop. CF could produce a new concept paper on the Sustainable Risk Based Land Management (S-RBLM) with a more developed focus on sustainability issues. This was proposed to be one of the thematic issues to propose in dedicated projects (see Session 0 Secretariat follow-up). A task force was set up at Salzburg meeting to start the drafting (with B. Beuthe / Belgium, D. Mueller and H. Kasamas / Austria, A. Bieber and J. Frauenstein / Germany, P. Nathanail / Cabernet). CONSOIL 2010: During CONSOIL 2010 in September Common Forum will: Organise a Special Session on Soil Protection / Do we need a Directive? Contribute to two SpSs on Sustainable remediation with US-EPA, SURF-UK, SURF, NICOLE and EURODEMO+, Contribute to the SpS organised by SNOWMAN on EU research opportunities and enhancing knowledge dissemination. See dedicated pages on the CF website. Request from the European Court of Auditors on Brownfield regeneration fundings: NICOLE and Common Forum received a request from the ECA for the future audit of the Brownfield regeneration funds. Contributions on the following issues are welcome: best way to manage the contaminated industrial and military brownfields situation in the EU best role the EU could play in this area in terms of policy interventions (Directives..), funding and support key success factors and impediments to realising a successful contaminated industrial and military brownfield regeneration key considerations in successfully approving a contaminated brownfield site for publicly funded regeneration key considerations/risks should we take into account in the planning a successful audit in this area A first answer is expected for October 4, Next meetings: Common Forum Meeting Report 13/14

14 o Spring 2011 CF meeting: We are in contact with UK for hosting the Spring 2011 meeting. More details will be provided by or the CF newsletter. o 10th ICCL meeting: Finally the 10 th meeting of the ICCL is planned for October 4-5, 2011 in Washington (USA). The four themes chosen for discussions include: 1. Integrating contaminated site remediation and reuse strategies (with special emphasis on sustainable remediation concepts); 2. Improving community involvement in site remediation decisions (with special emphasis on site-specific examples); 3. Improving technical communication and collaboration on new challenges for site remediation; 4. Mining site remediation: Legal, policy, technical, financial, and social issues. The ICCL s survey for 2011 will focus on mining site remediation. Following the ICCL Meeting, EPA and the ICCL will co-sponsor a workshop on innovative technology approaches to mining site remediation and reuse on Thursday, October 6, Highlights of the workshop include: Exhibit hall Concurrent breakout sessions Networking opportunities More information will be soon available on the ICCL website ( Tasks List Action Responsible Deadline Modifications of the secretariat contract (additional tasks) for budget demand DD / All CF members March 2011 Synthesis of discussions about how to move forward on DD 2 weeks the Soil Framework Directive Questionnaires: - review of the available pages All CF Members - modifications / new pages DD on demand Sustainable risk based land management concept: Spring - task force first draft meeting Possibility for Hosting Spring 2011 meeting T. Coles for UK End October Common Forum Meeting Report 14/14