Sewage sludge fund
Liability risks for the agricultural utilization of sewage sludge , which exist for the sewage sludge producer, are covered by so-called sewage sludge funds. There is a privately organized and a legally organized sewage sludge fund.
Voluntary sewage sludge fund
The Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kommunalversicherer (BADK) administers a sewage sludge fund (voluntary sewage sludge fund in contrast to the statutory sewage sludge fund with a compulsory membership of the sewage sludge donors), the basis of which was developed in the late 1980s in cooperation with the local authority associations, the German farmers' association and the wastewater technical association.
It has the task of paying compensation to farmers for the sewage sludge suppliers involved who have concluded a sewage sludge application contract with the supplier. In the contract, both contracting parties undertake to take measures that go beyond the requirements of the Sewage Sludge Ordinance. In addition to the conclusion of the contract, further prerequisites for compensation are the existing causality between the sewage sludge application and the damage as well as the farmer's inability to assert claims for damages against third parties. The decision on whether and the amount of the fund performance lies with an independent regulatory committee. The fund was financed through contributions, the amount of which depended on the average amount of agricultural sewage sludge of the respective member. With the entry into force of the statutory sewage sludge fund in 1999, the collection of contributions was fundamentally discontinued in order to prevent the municipalities from being burdened twice.
BADK has been managing the fund since it was founded in 1990. According to its own statements, the so-called “Voluntary Sewage Sludge Fund of the Municipalities” had an immediately available regulatory volume of around € 28 million at the end of 2011. In addition, a further approx. € 15 million can be collected from the members if they should be required for claims settlement.
Statutory sewage sludge compensation fund
Since January 1, 1999, a statutory sewage sludge compensation fund has also existed. Its legal conditions are set out in the “Ordinance on the Sewage Sludge Compensation Fund (Sewage Sludge Compensation Fund Ordinance - KlärEV)” of May 20, 1998 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 1048). In this statutory sewage sludge fund, contributions are levied for financing.
The formation and design of the statutory sewage sludge compensation fund is regulated in Section 1 of the KlärEV. According to this, the compensation in accordance with Section 9, Paragraph 1, Clause 2 of the Fertilizers Act is paid out of an unincorporated federal fund called the Sewage Sludge Compensation Fund . The special fund is to be kept separate from the other federal assets, its rights and obligations. It can act, sue or be sued under its name in legal transactions.
The sewage sludge compensation fund is administered by the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (Federal Agency). With a decision of May 18, 2004 (AZ: 2 BvR 2374/99), the Federal Constitutional Court declared the legal sewage sludge fund to be permissible.
Claims
The two existing sewage sludge funds overlap in their areas of liability. Between its establishment and 2011, 28 cases of damage by farmers were reported to the voluntary sewage sludge fund. In most cases, it was the contamination of the sewage sludge with vegetable seeds that survived the sewage treatment process in a germinable state, mostly tomato seeds. In no case was the alleged damage due to pollutants in the sewage sludge. In 21 of the 28 reported claims, the Regulatory Commission came to the conclusion that compensation payments will be made. Due to the insignificant amount of damage, the total amount of compensation payments of around € 25,000 was only slightly higher than the costs of the expert opinion, which were also covered by the voluntary sewage sludge fund. There are no known cases of damage from the area of responsibility of the statutory sewage sludge fund.
literature
- Horst Baumann: Insurance, constitutional and European law problems of monopolistic compensation funds. Represented on the basis of the statutory sewage sludge compensation fund . Verlag Versicherungswirtschaft (VVW), Karlsruhe 1998, ISBN 3-88487-757-7 . Google books
- Bernd Esch: Law - Comparison of the regulations of the statutory sewage sludge compensation fund and the voluntary clear sludge fund . In: Korrespondenz Abwasser (KA). Information sheet for wastewater management. Water, sewage, waste . Vol. 46, H. 1, 1999, ISSN 0341-1540 , pp. 82-88.
- Volker Lohse: Sewage sludge compensation fund and rule of law . In: Deutsche Verwaltungspraxis (DVP). Trade journal for public administration . Vol. 56, H. 8, 2005, ISSN 0945-1196 , pp. 345-349.
- Michael Scheier, Ralf Mangold: The obligation to contribute to the sewage sludge compensation fund. Comments on the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court . In: Zeitschrift für Wasserrecht (ZfW). German and international environmental protection law in the areas of water and waste . Vol. 44, H. 2, 2005, ISSN 0722-8910 , pp. 79-87.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.badk.de
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from December 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Euwid News, Thursday, August 12, 2004, BVerfG approves sewage sludge fund ( page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Euwid News, Friday, August 13, 2004, BDE further against compulsory funds for sewage sludge ( page no longer available , search in web archives )
