Sustainability and Remediation - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 898

with the potential to cause harm to human health, property and the wider envi-
ronment may severely limit or altogether preclude development and the beneficial
use of land (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2004 ). Hence, contaminated site
management decisions are based on Risk Management, as expressed in the pre-
vailing regulations for the particular region the site is in. In other words, the Risk
Management decision sets the scope of any remediation work. However, in most cir-
cumstances in Europe the Risk Management decision itself is related to the proposed
end-use of the site. However, it is increasingly being recognised that the execution
of any Risk Management required also needs to be sustainable. Under current cir-
cumstances, the “sustainable remediation” debate therefore centres on how to find a
reasonable balance between sustainability, Risk Management and land use.
A wider question is whether the environmental quality objectives set by the pre-
vailing regulatory regime or legislative regime are themselves sustainable, but this
question is outside the scope of this chapter. For example, some regimes, such as
those related to contamination prevention, take a hazard management approach
in the case of new contamination. For “recent”, “new” or “future” contamina-
tion, removal of contamination to background or original levels (rather than a risk
based environmental quality criteria) may be required. The Environmental Liability
Directive and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive is based on
the premise that site contamination should be seen as a historic problem and that
industrial processes will be managed in ways that do not result in releases to the
environment. Where such releases do occur these Directives require their effects to
be reversed.
20.2.2.2 Institutional Controls
Institutional controls describe control systems put in place to manage future actions
by institutions. These have a bearing on contamination in several ways:
1) Planning policies such as zoning affect the range of potential re-uses for
Brownfield sites
2) Controls on future land use (either in planning, or through contractual routes or
covenants) that limit the actions or access of a property owner, tenant or other
kind of user or person on a particular area of land. These are a key component
o the “fit for purpose” concept in risk based land management. Without institu-
tional controls fitness for purpose could not function as a viable approach in the
longer term.
3) Requirements for record keeping (for example regarding site condition, past con-
dition and any site investigation, Risk Assessment and Risk Management actions
that might have been carried out).
Typically, the concept most commonly referred to is the second one. For exam-
ple the US EPA defines institutional controls in broad terms as: “legal measures that
limit human exposure by restricting activity, use, and access to properties with resid-
ual contamination. This site provides a clearinghouse of information on LUCs for