Introduction to Contaminated Site Management - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 58

1.7.10 Costs of Soil Contamination
Large amounts of money are involved in the investigation, and certainly remedia-
tion, of contaminated sites. Many developed countries spend amounts in the nine or
ten digits (in euros or dollars) on contaminated sites. Today, development firms are
used to incorporating cost for soil contamination in their overall costs estimates.
The general rule in most countries that have regulations concerning contaminated
site management is that the persons or parties that cause the soil contamination
today are fully responsible for the Risk Management solutions, often including
recovery of the site to its original situation, that is, eliminating all contamination.
This principle is called the precautionary principle , see Raffensberger and Tickner
( 1999 ) for an overview. Generally speaking, they are obligated to carry all the costs
involved.
The cost aspect is much more complex for historical soil contamination , that
is, contaminations that were caused before any regulations were available. In most
countries, the polluter-pays principle is the foremost one. This means that the com-
pany, association, government or individual that caused a soil contamination is
responsible for the costs of investigation and Risk Management. In many cases,
however, it is difficult to identify the responsible party. In other cases, the pol-
luter apparently responsible is known, but it is difficult to prove that they indeed
caused the soil contamination. This has led to court cases with regard to the iden-
tification of the polluter responsible, often between a governmental body and a
company.
From the perspective of fairness, the 'polluter-pays principle' can be rather harsh.
In many situations, before the era of contaminated sites consciousness-raising (that
is, roughly, before 1980 in many developed countries), many individuals or compa-
nies contributed to soil contamination without any negative intent. A good example
are farmers who paid for waste materials in the 1960s for the purpose of elevating
their soils in wetland regions, focusing on land improvement and unaware of any
negative site effects due to the presence of contaminants in these waste materials.
Today, they may be held responsible for the contaminants in their soils originating
from these waste materials. It is a task for the politicians to find practical solutions
for these cases. Fairness often demands part or complete governmental financial
support.
In many countries, the owner of the estate can be held responsible for the site
when no polluter can be identified.
The costs of site investigation, site management and, especially, soil remediation
can be substantial. Therefore, many specific arrangements are designed in which the
government will at least subsidise the actions that are needed to manage soil con-
tamination, even when the polluter is known. Nowadays, it is generally recognised
that an efficient solution of the problem of the many contaminated sites in indus-
trialised countries requires a joint effort between the government and the business
community. In other words, the budget must come from the tax payer and private
initiatives combined.