reproduce below Ambientum an article which says that Asegra balance makes the application of Royal Decree 9 / 2005 on contaminated land in www.ambientum.com
Posted on 28/05/2008
Spain Preliminary soil. These facts provide us with enough perspective to take stock of its implementation and identify their advantages and disadvantages.
one hand, this Royal Decree, waited a long time, especially for those regions with the highest population and level of industrialization, can be described as
a good rule, which sets clear requirements comparable to their counterparts more demanding European Union, and that puts us way ahead of the Directive establishing a framework for soil protection, which is currently under development.
allowed to initiate a workflow, create a culture of protection of soil and has provided the State government the tool needed for a long time coming for the recovery of contaminated soils.
However, it may improve some aspects of this Royal Decree which makes it impractical in some cases, and will be analyzed below, along with the main consequences has been approved:
the lack of detail in Annex I , which establishes the relationship of soil potentially polluting activities, makes the scope is extremely wide, in some cases surprisingly affecting economic activities small and with reduced risk.
this has led to the Autonomous Communities which have been through the preliminary status reports, huge amounts of information from all these activities. And while most communities have devoted significant resources to manage and analyze this information, the task is supposing they invest a huge amount of time at the expense of expected progress in other critical tasks for the proper management of contaminated soils.
the adoption of this bill created the expectation of the emergence of a new market niche for companies in the environmental sector. Consequently companies were created providing services, mainly the investigation of soil, without the knowledge and resources. Given the risk that services in this area were provided by companies without sufficient capacity, several initiatives by the State government: a technical framework normalized by publishing research guides soil or risk analysis, and other developed rules to regulate such activities. From ASEGRE as an organization that promotes professionalism in the environmental sector, we support all initiatives to ensure minimum standards of performance and quality of companies operating in that sector.
Real Decree laid down in Annex III Criteria for consideration of a soil as contaminated, a soil will be declared as contaminated when determining unacceptable risks to human health protection or in case of ecosystems, due to the presence of contaminants. Therefore gives a value determining the risk posed by existing pollution compared to its intended use as decontamination costs are high and should be decontaminated only when necessary and to the level where the risk is acceptable. To do so plays an important role risk analysis as a tool of choice. However
this tool, besides being applied by a specialist consultant, está en manos del poseedor del suelo, y por lo tanto es susceptible de ser utilizada en beneficio de determinados intereses. Por ello es primordial crear una herramienta de análisis de riesgos con unas normas de uso que garanticen su objetividad, es decir que independientemente del técnico que lo aplique, el resultado sea siempre el mismo.
El hecho de que en nuestro país se esté produciendo una rápida transformación del suelo industrial en suelo urbano, sumado a la renovación de las instalaciones industriales, hace particularmente importante una adecuada aplicación del artículo 3.5. del Real Decreto, en el que se establece que en los suelos en los que se haya desarrollado alguna actividad potencialmente contaminant must submit a status report when requesting a change of activity or use.
But the reality is that it does not always apply this requirement appropriately and is resulting in decommissioning projects of industrial facilities, in addition to not conduct an investigation of industrial ruin itself so that it has discretion to segregate materials resulting from demolition and make their management as hazardous waste or construction and demolition waste, no further investigations of the soil or made with poor quality, with the result that a significant fraction of contaminated soils is handled improperly together with construction and demolition waste.
Therefore, with these comments, the Association of waste management companies and Special Resources, ASEGRE, which are represented the main contractors for research, risk analysis and remediation of soil, wishes to contribute to a better and more effective application of this rule.
Source: ASEGRE
