Old location

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An old location (in Switzerland legally: operating location ) is an operating location in environmental protection and spatial planning that poses risks to human health or the environment.

To the subject

In environmental law, the term contaminated site is usually further differentiated between old deposits (landfills) and old sites : These are facilities in which environmentally hazardous substances were handled. They can cause harmful soil changes , groundwater pollution or other dangers.

The term plays an important role especially in the remediation of contaminated sites . Today, running businesses are - at least in the industrialized world - mostly subject to strict environmental monitoring so that no contaminated sites are likely to accumulate

Recording of old locations

In industrial conurbations or large industrial cities, the number and area of ​​old locations are particularly large. As a rule, it is a question of decommissioned industrial plants, but properties with former military facilities can also be considered. The high probability of contaminated sites on formerly industrial or commercial areas means a considerable amount of work, especially for municipal environmental protection, urban planning (especially in urban land use planning) and municipal or regional economic development.

National

Germany

As Altstandorte defined § 2 para 5 no. 2 of the Federal Soil Protection Act (BBodSchG) of 17 March 1998 (BGBl. 1998 I, p 502 BGBl. III / FNA 2129-32) plots of disused installations and other plots on which with environmentally hazardous substances has been handled, excluding assets whose decommissioning of a permit under the atomic Energy Act requires.

Locations where environmentally hazardous substances are still handled are not old locations . The aim here is to record those areas where there is a suspicion of contaminated sites , which in turn are suspected of leading to harmful soil changes or other dangers for the general public or for individuals.

However, the term “handling” is not defined in more detail, but storage of potentially dangerous substances in normal household quantities is not sufficient to confirm a suspicion of danger. The suspected area or the property should be characterized by the handling of soil- damaging or environmentally hazardous substances . The terms dangerous and environmentally hazardous substances are legally defined in Section 3a of the Chemicals Act.

Austria

The term is defined in Section 2 Definitions of Terms  Paragraph 3 of the Altlastensanierungsgesetz  (ALSAG): "Old sites are locations of plants in which environmentally hazardous substances were handled."

It should be noted that contaminated sites are generally only those that arose before the contaminated site remediation law came into force (July 1, 1989) and, in the legal sense, only those that are recorded in the contaminated site atlas (managed by the Federal Environment Agency ). The reason is that the law is primarily aimed at financing the remediation or securing of a contaminated site, i.e. it deals with the questions of the liability of the former operator and / or landowner ( polluter and property owner liability ), because ultimately the federal government is liable for the remediation (§ 18 ALSAG; the competent authority is the governor ).

In Austria there are only relatively few old sites in the legal sense (in 2019 a total of 304 contaminated sites and 1,895 suspected sites).

Switzerland

Swiss law speaks of operating locations, they are "locations whose pollution originates from facilities that have been shut down or are still in operation or operations in which environmentally hazardous substances have been handled" (Art. 2 terms Z. 1 lit. b Contaminated Sites Ordinance - AltlV ). It does not differentiate between historical "old" pollution and plants that are still in operation, but rather emphasizes the operational safety of the same: Contaminated sites in the sense of the law are "contaminated sites in need of rehabilitation" (Art. 2 Z. 3 AltlV).

Of the roughly 4,000 locations in need of renovation in the cadastre of polluted locations , which are operated jointly by the federal government and the cantons at the Federal Office for the Environment , almost 50% (around 2,000) are operating locations .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Old deposit. Spectrum: Lexicon of Geosciences. - there also old location .
  2. ↑ a b Hubert Reichl: Liability for contaminated sites. Austrian Water and Waste Management Association (ÖWAV), onA (2009), I.1. What are contaminated sites? S. 2 ( pdf , on oewav.at, accessed November 28, 2019).
  3. ↑ For this more detailed ops cit. Reichl Liability for contaminated sites , III. Public liability issues relating to a property designated as contaminated site , p. 5 ff.
  4. ↑ Progress in the remediation of contaminated sites. , Federal Environment Agency: News , March 26, 2019.
  5. ↑ Status of contaminated sites in Switzerland. Federal Office for the Environment FOEN: Topic Contaminated Sites → Technical Information → Contaminated Sites Processing (as of April 30, 2019, accessed November 28, 2019).