Ordinance
on the Remediation of Polluted Sites
(Contaminated Sites Ordinance, CSO)

¹ This Or­din­ance is in­ten­ded to en­sure that pol­luted sites are re­medi­ated if they cause harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances, or if there is a real danger that such ef­fects may arise.

² It reg­u­lates the fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures for treat­ing pol­luted sites:

a.

their re­cord­ing in a re­gister;

b.

the as­sess­ment of the need for mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation;

c.

the as­sess­ment of the ob­ject­ives and ur­gency of re­medi­ation;

d.

the spe­cific­a­tion of the meas­ures for in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation.

¹ Pol­luted sitesmeans sites whose pol­lu­tion ori­gin­ates from waste, and that are re­stric­ted in area. They com­prise:

a.

waste dis­pos­al sites, i.e. in­op­er­at­ive or op­er­at­ive land­fills and oth­er sites where waste has been de­pos­ited, ex­cept for sites at which only un­pol­luted ex­cav­a­tion ma­ter­i­al, quar­ried ma­ter­i­al or spoil have been de­pos­ited;

b.

in­dus­tri­al sites, i.e. sites whose pol­lu­tion ori­gin­ates from in­op­er­at­ive or op­er­at­ive in­stall­a­tions or in­dus­tri­al op­er­a­tions in which en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances have been used;

c.

ac­ci­dent sites, i.e. sites pol­luted as a res­ult of ex­traordin­ary events, in­clud­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dents.

² Sites in need of re­medi­ation are pol­luted sites that cause harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances or where there is a real danger that such ef­fects may arise.

³ Con­tam­in­ated sitesare pol­luted sites in need of re­medi­ation.

Pol­luted sites may be mod­i­fied by the con­struc­tion or al­ter­a­tion of build­ings and in­stall­a­tions only if:

a.

they are not in need of re­medi­ation and the pro­ject does not make their re­medi­ation ne­ces­sary; or

b.

their later re­medi­ation is not ser­i­ously hampered, or, in­so­far as they are mod­i­fied by the pro­ject, they are re­medi­ated at the same time.

In­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation meas­ures un­der this Or­din­ance must cor­res­pond to the state of the art and be doc­u­mented by those re­spons­ible.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall identi­fy the pol­luted sites by eval­u­at­ing ex­ist­ing in­form­a­tion such as maps, re­gisters and re­ports. They may ob­tain in­form­a­tion from the hold­ers of the sites or from third parties.

² They shall give no­tice of the con­tent of the pro­posed re­gister entry to the hold­ers and provide them with the op­por­tun­ity to state their opin­ion and to provide cla­ri­fic­a­tion. At the re­quest of the hold­ers, the au­thor­it­ies shall is­sue a de­clar­at­ory rul­ing.

^{3 They shall enter in the Re­gister those sites that are es­tab­lished as pol­luted in accordance with para­graphs 1 and 2 or where there is a high prob­ab­il­ity that they are pol­luted. Where pos­sible, the entries shall con­tain the fol­low­ing in­formation:}

a.

loc­a­tion;

b.

type and quant­ity of waste de­livered to the site;

c.

peri­od of dis­pos­al of waste, peri­od of op­er­a­tion, or time of ac­ci­dent;

d.

in­vest­ig­a­tions and meas­ures already taken for the pro­tec­tion of the en­vir­on­ment;

e.

ef­fects that have already been as­cer­tained;

f.

en­dangered en­vir­on­ment­al areas;

g.

par­tic­u­lar events such as waste in­cin­er­a­tion, land­slides, floods, fires or ma­jor ac­ci­dents.

⁴ The au­thor­it­ies shall di­vide the pol­luted sites in­to the fol­low­ing cat­egor­ies based on the in­form­a­tion con­tained in the Re­gister, par­tic­u­larly with re­gard to type and quant­ity of waste de­livered to the site:

a.

sites from which no harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances are to be ex­pec­ted; and

b.

sites re­quir­ing an in­vest­ig­a­tion as to wheth­er they are in need of mon­it­or­ing or re­medi­ation.

⁵ The au­thor­it­ies shall pre­pare a list of pri­or­it­ies for per­form­ing the in­vest­ig­a­tions. In do­ing so, they shall pay due re­gard to the in­form­a­tion con­tained in the Re­gister con­cern­ing the type and quant­ity of waste de­livered to the pol­luted site, the like­li­hood of sub­stances be­ing re­leased and the im­port­ance of the en­vir­on­ment­al areas af­fected.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall add in­form­a­tion on the fol­low­ing to the entry in the Re­gister:

a.

the need for mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation;

b.

the ob­ject­ives and ur­gency of re­medi­ation;

c.

the meas­ures taken or ordered by them for the pro­tec­tion of the en­vir­on­ment.

² They shall de­lete the site entry in the Re­gister if:

a.

the in­vest­ig­a­tions show that the site is not pol­luted with en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances; or

b.

the en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances have been elim­in­ated.

The au­thor­it­ies shall take ac­count of the Re­gister in their struc­ture and land use plan­ning.

¹ Based on the list of pri­or­it­ies, the au­thor­it­ies shall re­quire a pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tionto be car­ried out with­in a reas­on­able peri­od for sites in need of in­vest­ig­a­tion. This shall nor­mally con­sist of a his­tor­ic­al and a tech­nic­al in­vest­ig­a­tion, so that the need for mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation can be as­sessed (Art. 8), and the en­vir­on­ment­al haz­ard eval­u­ated (risk as­sess­ment).

² The his­tor­ic­al in­vest­ig­a­tion shall es­tab­lish the pos­sible causes of the pol­lu­tion of the site, in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the events and the tem­por­al and spa­tial his­tory of de­vel­op­ments at the site;

b.

the pro­ced­ures used for hand­ling en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances at the site.

³ Based on the his­tor­ic­al in­vest­ig­a­tion, a per­form­ance spe­cific­a­tion shall be pre­pared on the aim, ex­tent and meth­ods of the tech­nic­al in­vest­ig­a­tion. The per­form­ance spe­cific­a­tion shall be sub­mit­ted to the au­thor­it­ies for com­ment.

⁴ The tech­nic­al in­vest­ig­a­tion shall es­tab­lish the type and quant­ity of sub­stances at the site, the like­li­hood of their re­lease and the im­port­ance of the en­vir­on­ment­al areas af­fected.

¹ Based on the pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion, the au­thor­it­ies shall as­sess wheth­er the pol­luted site is in need of mon­it­or­ing or re­medi­ationin ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 9 - 12. In do­ing so, they shall pay due re­gard to ef­fects caused by oth­er pol­luted sites or by third parties.

² They shall state in the Re­gister wheth­er a pol­luted site is:

a.

in need of mon­it­or­ing;

b.

in need of re­medi­ation (con­tam­in­ated site);

c.

in need of neither mon­it­or­ing nor re­medi­ation.

^{1 Sub­ject to para­graph 1bis,} a pol­luted site is deemed to be in need of mon­it­or­ing to pro­tect the ground­wa­ter, if:

a.

any of the con­cen­tra­tion val­ues spe­cified in An­nex 1 is ex­ceeded in the elu­ate of the ma­ter­i­al at the site; or

b.

for ground­wa­ter wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas Au, the con­cen­tra­tion of sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing from the site im­me­di­ately down­stream of the site ex­ceeds 10% of one of the con­cen­tra­tion val­ues spe­cified in An­nex 1; or

c.

for ground­wa­ter out­side wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas Au, the con­cen­tra­tion of sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing from the site im­me­di­ately down­stream of the site ex­ceeds 40% of one of the con­cen­tra­tion val­ues spe­cified in An­nex 1.³

^{1bis If after sev­er­al years of mon­it­or­ing a site, it is es­tab­lished that, con­sid­er­ing the evolution of pol­lut­ant con­cen­tra­tions and the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the site, it is highly prob­able that the site will not need re­medi­ation un­der para­graph 2, the site is deemed no longer to be in need of mon­it­or­ing.4}

² A pol­luted site is deemed to be in need of re­medi­ation to pro­tect the ground­wa­ter, if:

a.⁵

po­ten­tial wa­ter pol­lut­ants ori­gin­at­ing from the site are de­tec­ted in ground­wa­ter catch­ments of pub­lic in­terest in con­cen­tra­tions that ex­ceed the de­tec­tion threshold;

b.⁶

for ground­wa­ter in wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas Au⁷: the con­cen­tra­tion of sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing from the site im­me­di­ately down­stream of the site ex­ceeds one-half the con­cen­tra­tion value spe­cified in An­nex 1;

c.⁸

for ground­wa­ter out­side wa­ter pro­tec­tion area Au s: the con­cen­tra­tion of sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing from the site im­me­di­ately down­stream of the site ex­ceeds double the con­cen­tra­tion value spe­cified in An­nex 1; or

d.

it is in need of mon­it­or­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ter a, and, ow­ing to in­suf­fi­cient re­ten­tion ca­pa­city, or de­grad­a­tion of sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing from the site, there is a real danger of ground­wa­ter pol­lu­tion.

^{1 Sub­ject to para­graph 1bis,} a pol­luted site is deemed to be in need of mon­it­or­ing to pro­tect the sur­face wa­ters, if:⁹

a.

any of the con­cen­tra­tion val­ues spe­cified in An­nex 1 is ex­ceeded in the elu­ate of the ma­ter­i­al at the site which is sus­cept­ible of af­fect­ing sur­face wa­ters; or

b.

in wa­ter that flows in­to sur­face wa­ters, a con­cen­tra­tion value spe­cified in An­nex 1 is ex­ceeded for sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing from the site.

^{1bis If after sev­er­al years of mon­it­or­ing a site, it is es­tab­lished that, con­sid­er­ing the evolution of pol­lut­ant con­cen­tra­tions and the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the site, it is highly prob­able that the site will not need re­medi­ation un­der para­graph 2, the site is deemed no longer to be in need of mon­it­or­ing.10}

² For the pro­tec­tion of sur­face wa­ters, a pol­luted site is deemed to be in need of re­medi­ation if:

a.

in wa­ter that flows in­to sur­face wa­ters, the con­cen­tra­tion of sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing from the site ex­ceeds by ten­fold a con­cen­tra­tion value spe­cified in An­nex 1; or

b.

it is in need of mon­it­or­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ter a, and ow­ing to in­suf­fi­cient re­ten­tion ca­pa­city, or de­grad­a­tion of sub­stances ori­gin­at­ing at the site, there is a real danger of pol­lu­tion of sur­face wa­ters.

¹ For the pro­tec­tion of per­sons from air pol­lu­tion, a pol­luted site is deemed to be in need of mon­it­or­ing if its in­ter­sti­tial air ex­ceeds a con­cen­tra­tion value spe­cified in An­nex 2, and the emis­sion ori­gin­at­ing from the site reaches places that may reg­u­larly be fre­quen­ted by per­sons for longer peri­ods.

² For the pro­tec­tion of per­sons from air pol­lu­tion, a pol­luted site is deemed to be in need of re­medi­ation if its in­ter­sti­tial air ex­ceeds a con­cen­tra­tion value spe­cified in An­nex 2, and the emis­sion ori­gin­at­ing from the site reaches places that may reg­u­larly be fre­quen­ted by per­sons for longer peri­ods.

¹ Soil that is a pol­luted site or part there­of is deemed to be in need of re­medi­ation if a sub­stance in the soil ex­ceeds a con­cen­tra­tion value spe­cified in An­nex 3. The fore­go­ing also ap­plies to soil that is already sub­ject to a re­stric­tion of use.

² Soil that is not in need of re­medi­ation in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 des­pite be­ing pol­luted sites or parts there­of, and the im­pacts of pol­luted sites on soil are as­sessed in ac­cord­ance with the Or­din­ance of 1 Ju­ly 1998¹³ on the Pol­lu­tion of Soil.

¹ For pol­luted sites in need of mon­it­or­ing, the au­thor­it­ies shall re­quire a mon­it­or­ing plan to be drawn up and suit­able meas­ures to be taken to de­tect a real danger of harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances be­fore these be­come mani­fest. The mon­it­or­ing meas­ures shall be ap­plied un­til there is no longer any need for mon­it­or­ing in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 9–12.¹⁴

² For sites that are in need of re­medi­ation (con­tam­in­ated sites), the au­thor­it­ies shall re­quire that:

a.

a de­tailed in­vest­ig­a­tion be car­ried out with­in a reas­on­able peri­od;

b.

the site be mon­itored un­til com­ple­tion of re­medi­ation.

¹ To spe­cify the ob­ject­ives and as­sess the ur­gency of re­medi­ation, the fol­low­ing de­tailed in­form­a­tion shall be ob­tained and eval­u­ated in a risk as­sess­ment:

a.

type, loc­a­tion, quant­ity and con­cen­tra­tion of the en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances at the pol­luted site;

b.

type, load and tem­por­al de­vel­op­ment of the ex­ist­ing and pos­sible im­pacts on the en­vir­on­ment;

c.

loc­a­tion and im­port­ance of the en­vir­on­ment­al areas at risk.

² If the res­ults of the de­tailed in­vest­ig­a­tion de­vi­ate sub­stan­tially from those of the pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion, the au­thor­it­ies shall re­as­sess wheth­er the site is in need of re­medi­ation in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 9–12.

¹ The ob­ject­ive of re­medi­ation is the elim­in­a­tion of im­pacts that led to the need for re­medi­ation in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 9 - 12, or of the real danger of such ef­fects.

² As re­gards re­medi­ation for the pur­pose of ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion, de­vi­ation from the ob­ject­ive is made if:

a.

by this means the total en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact can be lessened;

b.

dis­pro­por­tion­ate costs would oth­er­wise res­ult; and

c.¹⁵

the ex­ploit­ab­il­ity of ground­wa­ter in wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas Au is guar­an­teed, or if sur­face wa­ters con­nec­ted to ground­wa­ter out­side wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas Au ful­fil the re­quire­ments of the wa­ters pro­tec­tion le­gis­la­tion re­gard­ing wa­ter qual­ity.

³ As re­gards re­medi­ation for the pur­pose of sur­face wa­ters pro­tec­tion, de­vi­ation from the ob­ject­ives is made if:

a.

by this means the total en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact can be lessened;

b.

dis­pro­por­tion­ate costs would oth­er­wise res­ult; and

c.

the wa­ters com­plies with the re­quire­ments of the wa­ters pro­tec­tion le­gis­la­tion re­gard­ing wa­ter qual­ity.

⁴ Re­medi­ation is deemed to be of par­tic­u­lar ur­gency if an ex­ist­ing use is im­paired or im­me­di­ately en­dangered.

⁵ The au­thor­it­ies shall as­sess the ob­ject­ives and the ur­gency of re­medi­ation on the basis of the de­tailed in­vest­ig­a­tion.

¹ The ob­ject­ive of re­medi­ation must be achieved by meas­ures that:

a.

en­able en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances to be elim­in­ated (de­con­tam­in­a­tion); or

b.

en­able the dif­fu­sion of en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances to be pre­ven­ted in the long term and mon­itored (se­cur­ing).

² …¹⁷

The au­thor­it­ies shall re­quire that for con­tam­in­ated sites a re­medi­ation pro­ject be pre­pared with­in a time frame ap­pro­pri­ate to the ur­gency of re­medi­ation. This shall de­scribe in par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing:

a.

the re­medi­ation meas­ures in­clud­ing those for mon­it­or­ing and for waste dis­pos­al, the ef­fect­ive­ness of the meas­ures, the as­sess­ment of their res­ults and the time ex­pendit­ure;

b.

the im­pact of the pro­posed meas­ures on the en­vir­on­ment;

c.

the re­sid­ual danger to the en­vir­on­ment fol­low­ing re­medi­ation;

d.

the shares of the re­spons­ib­il­ity for the con­tam­in­ated site in cases where the per­son re­quired to carry out re­medi­ation meas­ures de­mands a rul­ing on the al­loc­a­tion of costs (Art. 32d para. 3¹⁸ EPA).

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall as­sess the re­medi­ation pro­ject. In do­ing so, they shall pay par­tic­u­lar re­gard to the fol­low­ing:

a.

the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact of the meas­ures;

b.

their long-term ef­fect­ive­ness;

c.

the danger to the en­vir­on­ment caused by the con­tam­in­ated site be­fore and after re­medi­ation;

d.

in cases of in­com­plete de­con­tam­in­a­tion, the ex­tent to which the meas­ures may be mon­itored, av­en­ues for rem­edy­ing the de­fi­cien­cies and se­cur­ing the ne­ces­sary fund­ing for the pro­posed meas­ures;

e.

wheth­er the re­quire­ments for de­vi­ation from the re­medi­ation ob­ject­ive in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 15 para­graphs 2 and 3 are sat­is­fied.

² On the basis of this as­sess­ment, they shall is­sue a rul­ing con­tain­ing in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the fi­nal ob­ject­ives of the re­medi­ation;

b.

the re­medi­ation meas­ures, the as­sess­ment of res­ults and the time frame to be ad­hered to;

c.

fur­ther charges and con­di­tions for the pro­tec­tion of the en­vir­on­ment.

Per­sons re­quired to carry out re­medi­ation meas­ures must no­ti­fy the au­thor­it­ies of the re­medi­ation meas­ures car­ried out and demon­strate that the re­medi­ation ob­ject­ives have been achieved. The au­thor­it­ies shall ex­press an ex­pert opin­ion in this re­gard.

¹ The in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation meas­ures shall be car­ried out by the hold­er of the pol­luted site.

² If the au­thor­it­ies have reas­on to be­lieve that the pol­lu­tion of the site was caused by the ac­tion of third parties, the au­thor­it­ies may re­quire them to carry out the pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion, the mon­it­or­ing meas­ures or the de­tailed in­vest­ig­a­tion.

³ If the pol­lu­tion of the site was caused by the ac­tion of third parties, the au­thor­it­ies may re­quire these with the ap­prov­al of the hold­er to pre­pare the re­medi­ation pro­ject and per­form the re­medi­ation meas­ures.

¹ The can­tons shall en­force this Or­din­ance un­less it del­eg­ates en­force­ment to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.²¹ The can­tons shall sub­mit the in­form­a­tion re­quired in Art­icle 5 para­graphs 3 and 5 and Art­icle 6 as well as the in­form­a­tion on re­medi­ated sites re­quired by Art­icle 17 to the FOEN by the end of each cal­en­dar year.²²

^1bis The FOEN shall eval­u­ate the in­form­a­tion and in­form the pub­lic reg­u­larly on the pro­gress with the re­medi­ation of con­tam­in­ated sites.²³

² If fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies ap­ply oth­er fed­er­al acts or agree­ments or de­cisions un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law that re­late to the sub­ject mat­ter of this Or­din­ance, they shall also en­force this Or­din­ance. The co­oper­a­tion of the FOEN and of the can­tons is gov­erned by Art­icle 41 para­graphs 2 and 4 EPA; stat­utory du­ties of secrecy are re­served. If the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies dis­pense with is­su­ing a rul­ing when spe­cify­ing re­medi­ation meas­ures (Art. 23 para. 3), they shall con­sult the can­tons con­cerned about the in­ten­ded meas­ures.²⁴

³ The fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies shall de­term­ine the pro­ced­ures for cat­egor­ising pol­luted sites (Art. 5 para. 4), pre­par­ing the list of pri­or­it­ies (Art. 5 para. 5) and de­let­ing entries in the Re­gister (Art. 6 para. 2) after con­sulta­tion with the FOEN.²⁵

⁴ They shall in­form the can­tons con­cerned of the con­tent of the Re­gister (Art. 5 and 6) at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals. These shall in­clude a ref­er­ence to the rel­ev­ant pol­luted sites in their own re­gister.

¹ In en­for­cing this Or­din­ance, the au­thor­it­ies shall col­lab­or­ate with those dir­ectly con­cerned. In par­tic­u­lar, they shall ex­am­ine wheth­er vol­un­tary meas­ures provided for in sec­tor­al agree­ments of the private sec­tor are suit­able for the en­force­ment of this Or­din­ance.

² They shall en­deav­our to reach agree­ment with those dir­ectly con­cerned on the ne­ces­sary as­sess­ments and meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments of this Or­din­ance. To this end, they shall con­sult those dir­ectly con­cerned at the earli­est pos­sible time.

³ They may dis­pense with is­su­ing rul­ings if car­ry­ing out the re­quired in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation meas­ures is guar­an­teed by oth­er means.

De­vi­ation from the pro­ced­ures spe­cified in this Or­din­ance shall be per­mit­ted if:

a.

im­me­di­ate meas­ures for the pro­tec­tion of the en­vir­on­ment are ne­ces­sary;

b.

the need for mon­it­or­ing or re­medi­ation can be as­sessed, or the re­quired meas­ures de­term­ined, on the basis of ex­ist­ing in­form­a­tion;

c.

a pol­luted site is mod­i­fied by the con­struc­tion or al­ter­a­tion of a build­ing or in­stall­a­tion;

d.

vol­un­tary meas­ures by those dir­ectly con­cerned have an equi­val­ent ef­fect to those spe­cified in the Or­din­ance.

In pre­par­ing guidelines for im­ple­ment­ing this Or­din­ance, the Fed­er­al Agency shall col­lab­or­ate with the can­tons and the in­dus­tri­al or­gan­isa­tions con­cerned.

The Fed­er­al Of­fice shall spe­cify the min­im­um geodata mod­els and rep­res­ent­a­tion mod­els for geo­graph­ic­al base data in ac­cord­ance with this Or­din­ance for which the Fed­er­al Of­fice is des­ig­nated as the spe­cial­ist au­thor­ity at fed­er­al level in An­nex 1 to the Geoin­form­a­tion Or­din­ance of 21 May 2008²⁸.

…²⁹

The Re­gister (Art. 5) shall be pre­pared by 31 Decem­ber 2003.

This Or­din­ance comes in­to force on 1 Oc­to­ber 1998.