Water pollution

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Toxic discharges from an industrial plant
Illegal waste oil disposal
Polluted Inner Alster

Water pollution or water pollution is the pollution of surface water ( rivers , lakes , seas ) and groundwater with partially toxic substances. The water pollution , i.e. the deliberate and illegal pollution of water, is a criminal offense . The regulation serves to protect the environment as the basis of human life and in particular to protect water .

overview

In the case of water pollution, a distinction is made between point sources and diffuse pollution. Pollution is introduced directly into a body of water through point sources. A distinction must be made here:

  • Wastewater that is discharged directly from industry and trade via in-house sewage treatment plants (direct discharges)
  • Wastewater that is indirectly discharged from industry and commerce via municipal sewage treatment plants (indirect discharges)
  • Urban wastewater that is discharged through the municipal sewer system .

Diffuse pollution only finds its way into the water body indirectly, examples would be groundwater pollution from fertilizers or pesticides applied to agricultural areas, tire abrasion, de-icing salts and oil in street wastewater or air pollutants that are washed into the waterway with the rain. In addition to this permanent pollution, water can be polluted by accidents and catastrophes, such as a major fire in an industrial plant or a road tanker accident. Although these attract a great deal of public attention and can have strong acute effects in the affected waters, they hardly play a role in the long-term balance of pollution. It is roughly assumed that roughly half of the water pollution in Germany is due to point sources and the other half to diffuse sources, but the balance varies from person to person, depending on the pollutant and body of water considered.

Diffuse water pollution is to be reduced primarily by limiting emissions over a large area. An important role play conditions and restrictions of land use, such as limiting the amount of fertilizer to over-fertilization to prevent establishment of buffer strips without use, as a buffer zone or seepage of surface water to this to filter through a bottom passage before reaching the waters. To protect drinking water , special water protection areas with stricter requirements are designated. Every land user is of course obliged to comply with all standards and legal regulations. There is then normally no legal responsibility for the resulting water pollution.

Direct water pollution through point sources are legally considered as so-called "uses" of the water, so the polluter is a water user in the legal sense. They are permitted by law if the polluter has an “authorization”, normally in the form of a “ permit ” under German law . This is usually provided with restrictions and ancillary provisions , for example certain limit values for pollutants contained in wastewater. Such a permitted use of water is pollution of the water, but it is not considered water pollution in the legal sense, even if it causes verifiable ecological damage.

Extent of water pollution

Because almost all cities and villages in Germany and other EU countries have a sewage treatment plant today, pollution is decreasing and the water quality is increasing. However, the filter effectiveness of sewage treatment plants is limited for certain classes of substances, e.g. B. in the endocrine disruptors that got into rivers through sewage .

The Elbe and Saale are among the most polluted German waters . Worldwide, the Río Matanza-Riachuelo in Argentina, the Niger Delta and the Citarum River on the island of Java are contaminated to a threatening extent .

According to a report published by the European Environment Agency in 2018, two thirds of Europe's waters are in poor ecological status. In many small streams , strong pesticide loads are measured again and again, which in some cases far exceed the permitted limit values.

In China , 60 to 80 percent of the groundwater is heavily polluted and no longer suitable for drinking .

Seas

Plastic litter on a unique black sand beach on Maui

In the open sea, water pollution is noticeable to the naked eye in many places, including as a garbage vortex. These are oceanic eddies in which huge carpets of garbage have accumulated due to the ocean currents . The largest of these is in the North Pacific . Other causes include oil pollution , chemical and radioactive contaminated sites in the seas and the widespread discharge of untreated sewage into the sea. It is estimated that up to 13 million tons of garbage end up in the oceans every year. Countries in Asia in particular contribute to the fact that an enormous amount of plastic from industry and private households is disposed of directly in the rivers via landfills . In addition to the input of pollutants and garbage from natural and artificial tributaries flowing into the sea, marine shipping traffic is a major burden. This fact was taken into account with the adoption of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships . In the event of accidents involving ships - especially tankers - or gas and oil drilling platforms , the potential risk is correspondingly higher.

Legal

Normative basis in Germany

The offense is defined in Section 324 of the Criminal Code :

  1. Anyone who pollutes a body of water without authorization or otherwise adversely affects its properties is punished with imprisonment for up to five years or with a fine.
  2. The attempt is punishable.
  3. If the offender acts negligently, the penalty is imprisonment for up to three years or a fine.

Under water , the German courts interpret as defined in § 330d StGB surface waters (eg. As rivers, streams or lakes ), groundwater and the sea. On the other hand, tap water , water contained in artificial containers and wastewater are excluded from this definition.

A disadvantageous deterioration is any not inconsiderable deterioration in the water's properties in the physical , chemical or biological sense. One of these is pollution , which includes externally recognizable changes such as cloudiness and traces of oil . It is already sufficient if the properties are only temporarily adversely changed. Likewise, the water quality does not necessarily have to be influenced; a factual impairment of the possible uses can be sufficient, e.g. B. in the case of obstacles or sharp objects in a swimming lake. A certain relevance is necessary here.

The factual feature unauthorized indicates the illegality . It will not be met if there is an effective regulatory approval for the contamination.

In addition to intentional inspections, negligent inspections are also punished, albeit with a lower penalty. The attempt is also punished. The act becomes statute-barred after five years ( Section 78 of the Criminal Code, Paragraph 3, No. 4 ). The qualifying features of the particularly serious case of an environmental crime ( Section 330 StGB ) apply accordingly.

Criminal relevance

After the unauthorized handling of hazardous waste ( §326 StGB ), water pollution is the second most common environmental crime. The German Federal Criminal Police Office recorded a total of 4415 cases in 2003, 14 fewer than in the previous year. Although the trend has been declining for years, a high number of unreported cases must be assumed. The low clear-up rate of around 20% also clouded expectations of a comprehensive fight against this form of crime.

Other states

Austria regulates the offense in Sections 180 ( deliberate damage to the environment ) and 181 StGB ( negligent damage to the environment ), Switzerland in Art. 70 GSchG .

At European level, special measures have been introduced against the most dangerous substances in surface and groundwater and in seawater on the basis of the Water Framework Directive .

2018 was Italy to an annual fine convicted of 60 million euros. This is because 74 Italian municipalities are still discharging their wastewater into rivers or the sea either completely untreated or insufficiently treated.

See also

Web links

Commons : Water Pollution  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pollution. In: Lexicon of Sustainability. Nuremberg Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Middle Franconia, Aachen Foundation Kathy Beys , November 3, 2015, accessed on January 25, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b The Worlds Worst 2013: The Top Ten Toxic Threat. Blacksmith Institute (renamed Pure Earth since 2015 ), p. 18 , accessed January 25, 2020 . Available under 2013 Report. Retrieved January 25, 2020 .
  3. ^ The 10 most polluted places in 2013. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . 2013, accessed on January 25, 2020 (photo gallery).
  4. ↑ Olivia Yallop: Citarum, the most polluted river in the world? In: The Telegraph . April 11, 2014, accessed January 25, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Europe's waters in poor condition. In: Science@ORF.at . July 3, 2018, accessed January 25, 2020 .
  6. ↑ EEA Report No 7/2018 eea.europa.eu, accessed on July 6, 2018.
  7. ↑ Jorge Casado, Kevin Brigden, David Santillo, Paul Johnston: Screening of pesticides and veterinary drugs in small streams in the European Union by liquid chromatography high resolution mass spectrometry. In: Science of The Total Environment. 670, 2019, p. 1204, doi : 10.1016 / j.scitotenv.2019.03.207 .
  8. ↑ Andri Bryner: Too many pesticides in small streams. In: eawag.ch . April 2, 2019, accessed May 2, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Axel Dorloff: Water in China - massive pollution, especially in the groundwater. In: deutschlandfunk.de. May 19, 2016, accessed January 6, 2020 .
  10. ↑ An Undetected Threat - Garbage Carpets in the Pacific. October 4, 2008, archived from the original on December 5, 2010 ; Retrieved January 14, 2010 .
  11. ^ Judith S. Weis: Marine pollution: What everyone needs to know. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-999668-1 .
  12. ↑ Water pollution: landfills in Asia. Retrieved August 11, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Harald Rossmann: Water law - LVA 811.304. (PDF) Lower Austrian State Academy, archived from the original on March 6, 2007 ; Retrieved December 10, 2009 .
  14. ↑ Federal Act on the Protection of Waters (Water Protection Act, GSchG) of January 24, 1991 (as of August 1, 2008). (PDF; 190 kB) The federal authorities of the Swiss Confederation, accessed on December 10, 2009 .
  15. ^ Franco Battel: Faeces in the Mediterranean - EU fines Italy for lack of sewage treatment plants. In: srf.ch . May 31, 2018, accessed September 27, 2018 .