Management of abandoned and contaminated land - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 177

The “Altlastenprogramm'' (Contaminated Land Program) in Germany has been
going on since 1980. A total of 290,000 sites are on the list of suspected sites, 25%
have been surveyed with a risk assessment output, and 10% have been cleaned up.
About 10-15% of the listed sites need intervention. Germany spent

400 million for its
“Altlastenprogramm'' from 1991 to 2008 (Frauenstein, 2010). The legal background
was established in Germany in 1998-1999, laying down uniform methodology for
risk assessment of contaminated sites. An ecologically and economically sustainable
management strategy was established with emphasis on the following:

a

- Harmonization between legal tools;

- Innovative management strategy;

- Efficient methods for assessment and monitoring as well as risk reduction;

- Utilization of natural attenuation.

The contaminated site regulation in the UK was introduced in 1990 by the Envi-
ronmental Protection Act (1990), establishing the legislative framework for identifying
and dealing with contaminated land. To fulfill the requirements of the regulation,
the theoretical background of contaminated site management and a series of guide-
lines were established and published to ensure the uniform approach of the risk based
management of contaminated land. In addition to the legal and practical duties, the
regulation contains the important point of “determination of the appropriate person
to bear responsibility for remediation''. After the collection of practical experiences a
detailed regulation was established for contaminated land management. The Contam-
inated Land Regulations (2006) sets out provisions relating to the identification and
remediation of contaminated land, 'special sites' and land contaminated by radioactive
substances.
In Hungary, the National Contaminated Site Remediation Program started in 1995
with the aim of listing contaminated sites, assessing their risk, preparing priority lists,
cleaning up the most risky ones and implementing step-wise intervention for the others
(KVVM, 2003). As the legal background was completely missing, additional tasks for
the remediation program were the establishment and publication of the strategy and
methodologies, carrying out basic and applied research, education, creating an infor-
mation system, and establishing the legal background. The regulation of contaminated
soil entered into force in 2000, with quality criteria and screening concentrations for
soil and groundwater and with the requirement of a risk-based remedial target value for
contaminated sites. Many of the general tasks were fulfilled, which resulted in good
progress in contaminated land management in Hungary, but the clean-up program
proceeded very slowly due to limited financial resources.
The first lessons of the first contaminated site remediation projects throughout
Europe were that, in addition to the clean-up of inherited contaminated sites, the
most important task is the prevention of new contamination. Another lesson learnt is
that the identification of the problem as the first step of risk management makes possi-
ble the problem-related assessment, which can reduce the time and cost requirement of
the preparatory phase. Risk-based remediation with a future land use-specific target
quality may reduce costs of remedial measures.