Waters Protection Ordinance
(WPO)

¹ This Or­din­ance shall fa­cil­it­ate the pro­tec­tion of sur­face and un­der­ground wa­ters from harm­ful ef­fects and en­able their sus­tain­able use.

² For this pur­pose, all meas­ures taken un­der this Or­din­ance must take ac­count of the eco­lo­gic­al goals for wa­ters (An­nex 1).

¹ This Or­din­ance reg­u­lates:

a.

eco­lo­gic­al goals for wa­ters;

b.

re­quire­ments on wa­ter qual­ity;

c.

dis­pos­al of waste wa­ter;

d.

dis­pos­al of sewage sludge;

e.

re­quire­ments for an­im­al hus­bandry farms;

f.

pro­tec­tion of wa­ters in terms of area plan­ning;

g.

main­ten­ance of ap­pro­pri­ate re­sid­ual flow;

h.³

pre­ven­tion and re­medi­ation of oth­er harm­ful ef­fects on wa­ters;

i.

grant­ing of fed­er­al con­tri­bu­tions.

² The Or­din­ance ap­plies to ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances, in­so­far as such sub­stances have bio­lo­gic­al ef­fects res­ult­ing from their chem­ic­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics. In­so­far as these sub­stances have bio­lo­gic­al ef­fects res­ult­ing from ra­di­ation, the le­gis­la­tion on ra­di­ation pro­tec­tion and nuc­le­ar en­ergy ap­plies.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall as­sess wheth­er waste wa­ter en­ter­ing a body of wa­ter by way of dis­charge or in­filt­ra­tion is con­sidered to be pol­luted or non-pol­luted, tak­ing ac­count of:

a.

the type, the amount, the char­ac­ter­ist­ics and the tem­por­al oc­cur­rence of po­ten­tial wa­ter pol­lut­ants sub­stances in the waste wa­ter;

b.

the con­di­tion of the re­ceiv­ing wa­ters.

² Dur­ing in­filt­ra­tion of waste wa­ter, they shall also take ac­count of wheth­er:

a.

waste wa­ter can be pol­luted be­cause of ex­ist­ing soil pol­lu­tion or the un­sat­ur­ated sub­soil;

b.⁴

waste wa­ter is suf­fi­ciently pur­i­fied in the soil or in the un­sat­ur­ated sub­soil;

c.

guide val­ues un­der the Or­din­ance of 1 Ju­ly 1998⁵ on the Pol­lu­tion of Soil (SoilPO) can be main­tained in the long term, ex­cept­ing in­filt­ra­tion in­to a plant in­ten­ded for this pur­pose, or onto roads next to em­bank­ments or grass verges.

³ Pre­cip­it­a­tion wa­ter run­ning off built-up or sealed sur­faces is as a rule con­sidered to be non-pol­luted waste wa­ter if it:

a.

ori­gin­ates from roof sur­faces;

b.⁶

ori­gin­ates from roads, paths and areas on which no sub­stan­tial amounts of po­ten­tial wa­ter pol­lut­ants are un­loaded, pro­cessed and stored and if they are suf­fi­ciently pur­i­fied by in­filt­ra­tion in­to the ground. In as­sess­ing wheth­er amounts of sub­stances are sub­stan­tial, the risk of ac­ci­dents must be taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion;

c.⁷

ori­gin­ates from track in­stall­a­tions where there is a long-term guar­an­tee that pesti­cides will not be used or if pesti­cides have been suf­fi­ciently re­tained and de­graded by a bio­lo­gic­ally act­ive lay­er of soil.

¹ The can­tons shall en­sure that a re­gion­al drain­age plan (RDP) is drawn up to guar­an­tee ap­pro­pri­ate wa­ters pro­tec­tion in a lim­ited, hy­dro­lo­gic­ally-re­lated area in which wa­ters pro­tec­tion meas­ures of the com­munes must be co­ordin­ated.

² The RDP de­term­ines in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the loc­a­tions of waste wa­ter treat­ment plants and areas which are to be joined to them;

b.

which and to what ex­tent sur­face wa­ters are suit­able for the dis­charge of waste wa­ter, par­tic­u­larly that arising from pre­cip­it­a­tion;

c.

the waste wa­ter treat­ment plants for which re­quire­ments in re­spect of dis­charge of waste wa­ter must be stricter or sup­ple­men­ted.

³ In draw­ing up the RDP, the au­thor­it­ies shall take ac­count of spa­tial re­quire­ments of wa­ters, flood pro­tec­tion and meas­ures for wa­ters pro­tec­tion oth­er than waste wa­ter treat­ment.

⁴ The RDP is man­dat­ory for plan­ning and es­tab­lish­ing of wa­ters pro­tec­tion meas­ures in com­munes.

⁵ It shall be ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic.

¹ The can­tons shall en­sure that gen­er­al drain­age plans (GDP) are drawn up which guar­an­tee ad­equate wa­ters pro­tec­tion in com­munes and ef­fect­ive drain­age of hous­ing areas.

² The GDP shall spe­cify as a min­im­um:

a.

waste wa­ter treat­ment areas that must be served by pub­lic sew­ers;

b.

areas in which pre­cip­it­a­tion wa­ter run­ning off built-up or sealed sur­faces must be dis­posed of sep­ar­ately from oth­er waste wa­ter;

c.

areas in which non-pol­luted waste wa­ter must be al­lowed to in­filt­rate;

d.

areas in which non-pol­luted waste wa­ter must be dis­charged in­to sur­facewa­ters;

e.

meas­ures by which non-pol­luted waste wa­ter with per­man­ent flow must be kept away from waste wa­ter treat­ment plants;

f.

the loc­a­tions where waste wa­ter treat­ment plantsmust be set up, and withwhich treat­ment sys­tem and with what ca­pa­city;

g.

areas in which sys­tems oth­er than waste wa­ter treat­ment plants must be used, and how, in these areas, waste wa­ter is to be dis­posed of.

³ The GDP shall be ad­jus­ted if ne­ces­sary:

a.

to take ac­count of de­vel­op­ments in hous­ing areas;

b.

if a RDP is drawn up or changed.

⁴ It shall be ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall au­thor­ise the dis­charge of pol­luted waste wa­ter in­to sur­facewa­ters, drain­age areas, un­der­ground rivers and streams if the re­quire­ments on dis­charge in­to wa­ters ac­cord­ing to An­nex 3 are com­plied with.

² They shall set ad­di­tion­al or stricter re­quire­ments, if:

a.

the wa­ters con­cerned by the dis­charge of waste wa­ter do not ful­fil wa­ter qual­ity re­quire­ments ac­cord­ing to An­nex 2 or if this is ne­ces­sary to com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments or de­cisions; and

b.

on the basis of in­vest­ig­a­tion (Art. 47) it is cer­tain that de­fi­cient wa­ter qual­ity is largely due to dis­charge of waste wa­ter, and pro­ced­ures ne­ces­sary to com­ply are not dis­pro­por­tion­ate for the waste wa­ter treat­ment plant.

³ They may set ad­di­tion­al or stricter re­quire­ments if the wa­ter qual­ity ac­cord­ing to An­nex 2 is not suf­fi­cient for a spe­cif­ic use of the body of wa­ter con­cerned.

⁴ They may ap­ply less strin­gent re­quire­ments if:

a.

by re­du­cing the amounts of waste wa­ter dis­charged, few­er po­ten­tial wa­ter pol­lut­ants are dis­charged even though the con­cen­tra­tions al­lowed are high­er; or

b.

the en­vir­on­ment as a whole is less im­paired by the dis­charge of non-re­cyc­lable sub­stances in in­dus­tri­al waste wa­ter than by an­oth­er meth­od of dis­pos­al; re­quire­ments on wa­ter qual­ity ac­cord­ing to An­nex 2 and in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments or de­cisions must be com­plied with.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall au­thor­ise dis­charge of waste wa­ter from in­dustry ac­cord­ing to An­nex 3.2 or of oth­er waste wa­ter ac­cord­ing to An­nex 3.3 in­to pub­lic sew­ers if the re­quire­ments of the rel­ev­ant An­nex are com­plied with.

² They shall set ad­di­tion­al or stricter re­quire­mentsif by dis­charge of waste wa­ter:

a.

op­er­a­tion of pub­lic sew­ers may be re­stric­ted or dis­rup­ted;

b.

in the case of waste wa­ter from the cent­ral waste wa­ter treat­ment plant, the re­quire­ments on dis­charge in­to a body of wa­ter are not met or may only be met by dis­pro­por­tion­ate meas­ures, or could re­strict or dis­rupt the op­er­a­tion of the plant in an­oth­er way; or

c.⁸

...

d.

the op­er­a­tion of the plant in which sludge is in­cin­er­ated may re­stric­ted or dis­rup­ted.

³ They may ap­ply less strin­gent re­quire­ments if:

a.

by re­du­cing the amounts of waste wa­ter dis­charged, few­er po­ten­tial wa­ter pol­lut­ants are dis­charged even though the con­cen­tra­tions al­lowed are high­er;

b.

the en­vir­on­ment as a whole will be less im­paired by the dis­charge of non-re­cyc­lable sub­stances in in­dus­tri­al waste wa­ter than by an­oth­er dis­pos­al meth­od,and in the case of waste wa­ter from the cent­ral waste wa­ter treat­ment plant, re­quire­ments on dis­charge in­to a body of wa­ter are met; or

c.

this is ap­pro­pri­ate for the op­er­a­tion of the waste wa­ter treat­ment plant.

¹ The in­filt­ra­tion of pol­luted waste wa­ter is pro­hib­ited.

² The au­thor­it­ies may au­thor­ise the in­filt­ra­tion of com­mun­al waste wa­ter or of oth­er pol­luted waste wa­ter of com­par­able com­pos­i­tion, if:

a.

the waste wa­ter has been treated and meets the re­quire­ments for dis­charge in­to wa­ters;

b.

in the case of the ground­wa­ter con­cerned, wa­ter qual­ity re­quire­ments ac­cord­ing to An­nex 2 are met after in­filt­ra­tion of the waste wa­ter;

c.

in­filt­ra­tion en­sues at an in­stall­a­tion in­ten­ded for the pur­pose, the dir­ect­ives of the SoilPO⁹ are not ex­ceeded even in the long term, or in the ab­sence of dir­ect­ives soil fer­til­ity is also guar­an­teed in the long term; and

d.

re­quire­ments val­id for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants which dis­charge waste wa­ter in­to a body of wa­ter are met (Arts. 13–17).

¹ Pol­luted waste wa­ter oc­cur­ring out­side pub­lic sew­ers for which neither dis­charge in­to wa­ters, nor in­filt­ra­tion, nor use com­bined with farm ma­nure (Art. 12 para. 4 WPA) is per­mit­ted must be col­lec­ted in a cesspit which is reg­u­larly emp­tied with its con­tents be­ing trans­ferred to a cent­ral waste wa­ter treat­ment plant or fa­cil­ity for spe­cial treat­ment.

² Waste wa­ter from pro­cessing farm ma­nure, hy­dro­ponics and oth­er hor­ti­cul­tur­al meth­ods must be used in an en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible man­ner and re­used ag­ri­cul­tur­ally or hor­ti­cul­tur­ally ac­cord­ing to the state of the art.

³ Waste wa­ter from mo­bile san­it­a­tion fa­cil­it­ies must be col­lec­ted and may be dis­charged in­to pub­lic sew­ers only by us­ing equip­ment in­ten­ded for this pur­pose. Ex­cluded from this are san­it­a­tion fa­cil­it­ies in:

a.

rail­way car­riages with their own waste wa­ter treat­ment fa­cil­it­ies;

b.

rail­way car­riages for long-dis­tance traffic which were com­mis­sioned be­fore 1 Janu­ary 1 1997;

c.

rail­way car­riages for re­gion­al or urb­an traffic which were com­mis­sioned be­fore 1 Janu­ary 2000.

It is pro­hib­ited:

a.

to dis­pose of sol­id and li­quid wastes with waste wa­ter un­less this is ex­pedi­ent for treat­ment of waste wa­ter;

b.

to dis­charge sub­stances in a way which is con­trary to in­struc­tions on the man­u­fac­turer’s la­bel or in the dir­ec­tions for use.

Dur­ing con­struc­tion or sub­stan­tial build­ing al­ter­a­tions, the per­sons re­spons­ible for the build­ings must en­sure that pre­cip­it­a­tion wa­ter and per­man­ent flows of non-pol­luted waste wa­ter are chan­nelled off sep­ar­ately from pol­luted waste wa­ter pri­or to reach­ing the out­side of the build­ing.

¹ The dis­charge of pol­luted waste wa­ter in­to pub­lic sew­ers out­side build­ing zones (Art. 11 para. 2 let. c WPA) is:

a.

ex­pedi­ent if the con­nec­tion may be con­struc­ted prop­erly and with stand­ard build­ing ex­pendit­ure;

b.

reas­on­able if the costs of the con­nec­tion do not sub­stan­tially ex­ceed those for com­par­able con­nec­tions with­in the build­ing zone.

² The au­thor­it­ies may only au­thor­ise new dis­charges of per­man­ent flows of non-pol­luted waste wa­ter in­to a cent­ral waste wa­ter treat­ment plant (Art. 12 para. 3 WPA) if loc­al con­di­tions do not per­mit in­filt­ra­tion or dis­charge in­to a body of wa­ter

³ In or­der for a farm to qual­i­fy for ex­emp­tion from the bond to be con­nec­ted to the pub­lic sew­ers (Art 12 para. 4 WPA), its cattle and pig stock must com­prise at least eight live­stock units.

¹ Per­sons re­spons­ible for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants must:

a.

main­tain the fa­cil­it­ies in work­ing or­der;

b.

identi­fy cases of di­ver­gence from nor­mal op­er­a­tion, cla­ri­fy the causes and im­me­di­ately rec­ti­fy these;

c.

dur­ing op­er­a­tion take all reas­on­able meas­ures to con­trib­ute to re­du­cing the amount of sub­stances dis­charged.

² Per­sons re­spons­ible for en­ter­prises dis­char­ging in­dus­tri­al waste wa­ter in­to pub­lic sew­ers as well as per­sons re­spons­ible for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants dis­char­ging waste wa­ter in­to the pub­lic sew­ers or in­to a body of wa­ter must en­sure that:

a.

those re­spons­ible for the op­er­a­tion are named;

b.

op­er­at­ing staff pos­sess the ne­ces­sary ex­pert know­ledge; and

c.

that amounts and con­cen­tra­tions of sub­stances dis­charged are de­term­ined if the au­thor­isa­tion con­tains nu­mer­ic­al re­quire­ments.

³ Un­der para­graph 2, the au­thor­it­ies may re­quire that own­ers:

a.

de­term­ine the amounts and con­cen­tra­tions of sub­stances dis­charged which would in­flu­ence the qual­ity of the pol­luted wa­ter and of the re­ceiv­ing wa­ters by vir­tue of their prop­er­ties, quant­ity and peri­od of dis­charge, even if the au­thor­isa­tion con­tains no nu­mer­ic­al re­quire­ments;

b.

con­serve cer­tain waste wa­ter test res­ults for an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od;

c.

de­term­ine the ef­fects of waste wa­ter dis­charge or in­filt­ra­tion on wa­ter qual­ity if there is a risk that the wa­ter qual­ity re­quire­ments un­der An­nex 2 are not com­plied with.

⁴ The amounts and con­cen­tra­tions of sub­stances dis­charged may be de­term­ined arith­met­ic­ally on the basis of sub­stance flows.

¹ Per­sons re­spons­ible for en­ter­prises that dis­charge in­dus­tri­al waste wa­ter in­to pub­lic sew­ers and per­sons re­spons­ible for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants who dis­charge waste wa­ter in­to pub­lic sew­ers or in­to a body of wa­ter must re­port to and as in­struc­ted by the au­thor­it­ies:

a.

the amount of waste wa­ter dis­charged;

b.

the amounts and con­cen­tra­tions of sub­stances dis­charged which they must de­term­ine ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 13.

² Per­sons re­spons­ible for cent­ral waste wa­ter treat­ment plants must also re­port:

a.

im­port­ant op­er­at­ing data such as de­gree of ef­fect­ive­ness, quant­ity and char­ac­ter­ist­ics of sludge, type of sludge dis­pos­al, en­ergy con­sump­tionand op­er­at­ing costs;

b.

con­di­tions in the catch­ment area of the plant, such as con­nec­tionrate and the per­cent­age of non-pol­luted waste wa­ter with per­man­ent flow.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall ex­am­ine peri­od­ic­ally wheth­er:

a.

en­ter­prises which dis­charge in­dus­tri­al waste wa­ter in­to pub­lic sew­ers, and waste wa­ter treat­ment plants which dis­charge waste wa­ter in­to pub­lic sew­ers or in­to a body of wa­ter are com­ply­ing with the re­quire­ments set out in the au­thor­isa­tion;

b.

these re­quire­ments con­tin­ue to guar­an­tee ad­equate wa­ters pro­tec­tion.

² For this pur­pose, they shall take ac­count of the res­ults of the as­sess­ments made by the per­son re­spons­ible.

³ They shall ad­just the au­thor­isa­tions if ne­ces­sary and or­der the re­quired meas­ures. In do­ing so, they shall take ac­count of the ur­gency of the re­quired meas­ures, as well as the ob­lig­a­tions res­ult­ing from in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments or de­cisions.

¹ The per­sons re­spons­ible for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants that dis­charge waste wa­ter in­to a body of wa­ter and per­sons re­spons­ible for en­ter­prises who dis­charge in­dus­tri­al waste wa­ter in­to a waste wa­ter treat­ment plant must take ap­pro­pri­ate and eco­nom­ic­ally ac­cept­able meas­ures to re­duce the risk of pol­lu­tion of a body of wa­ter arising from ex­cep­tion­al events.

² If in spite of these meas­ures the risk is un­ac­cept­able, the au­thor­it­ies shall or­der the ne­ces­sary ad­di­tion­al meas­ures.

³ Reg­u­la­tions in the Ma­jor Ac­ci­dents Or­din­ance of 27 Feb­ru­ary 1991¹⁰ and the Or­din­ance of 20 Novem­ber 1991¹¹ on the Guar­an­tee of Drink­ing Wa­ter Sup­plies in Emer­gen­cies that go fur­ther are re­served.

¹ Per­sons re­spons­ible for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants that dis­charge waste wa­ter in­to a body of wa­ter must en­sure that any event which is ex­cep­tion­al is re­por­ted im­me­di­ately to the au­thor­it­ies, if such an event or events could lead to a situ­ation in which it is no longer pos­sible to guar­an­tee com­pli­ance with the reg­u­la­tions on the dis­charge of waste wa­ter in­to a body of wa­ter or the in­ten­ded use or dis­pos­al of sludge.

² Per­sons re­spons­ible for en­ter­prises that dis­charge in­dus­tri­al waste wa­ter must en­sure that ex­cep­tion­al events are im­me­di­ately re­por­ted to the own­er of the waste wa­ter treat­ment plant if these could lead to a situ­ation in which the nor­mal, or­derly op­er­a­tion of the wa­ter or waste wa­ter treat­ment plant is re­stric­ted or dis­rup­ted.

³ The au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that the com­munit­ies and in­di­vidu­als af­fected by an ex­cep­tion­al event are in­formed about pos­sible harm­ful ef­fects on wa­ters in due time. If sub­stan­tial ef­fects may be ex­pec­ted bey­ond can­ton­al or na­tion­al bound­ar­ies, they shall also en­sure that the fed­er­al alarm centre, as well as the neigh­bour­ing can­tons and states are no­ti­fied.

⁴ ...¹²

⁵ Re­port­ing and in­form­a­tion ob­lig­a­tions arising from the Ma­jor Ac­ci­dents Or­din­ance are re­served.

¹ The can­tons shall draw up a sludge dis­pos­al plan and bring it in­to line with the new re­quire­ments with­in the dead­lines im­posed by ex­perts.

² The dis­pos­al plan sets the fol­low­ing as a min­im­um:

a.

how sludge from the cent­ral waste wa­ter treat­ment plants should be dis­posed of;

b.

which pro­ced­ures, in­clud­ing con­struc­tion and modi­fic­a­tion of in­stall­a­tions used for dis­pos­al of sludge, are re­quired at what time.

³ The sludge dis­pos­al plan shall be ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic.

¹ Per­sons re­spons­ible for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants shall en­sure that they can store the sludge un­til en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible dis­pos­al is guar­an­teed.

² If sludge from a waste wa­ter treat­ment plant can­not be dis­posed of in an en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible man­ner at any time, the plant must have a stor­age ca­pa­city of at least two months.¹³

³ ...¹⁴

¹ Per­sons re­spons­ible for waste wa­ter treat­ment plants must en­sure that the qual­ity of sludge is in­spec­ted with­in the dead­lines im­posed by ex­perts.

² ...¹⁵

³ ...¹⁶

¹ Per­sons re­spons­ible for cent­ral waste wa­ter treat­ment plants must keep a re­cord of re­cip­i­ents of sludge, the amount sup­plied, type of dis­pos­al de­clared and time of sup­ply and re­tain this in­form­a­tion for at least ten years and make it avail­able to the au­thor­it­ies on re­quest.

² ...¹⁷

³ ...¹⁸

⁴ They may only dis­pose of sludge oth­er than as planned in the can­ton­al Sludge Dis­pos­al Plan with the agree­ment of can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies. If sludge is to be dis­posed of in an­oth­er can­ton, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall con­sult the au­thor­it­ies of the re­ceiv­ing can­ton in ad­vance.

The fol­low­ing are deemed to be an­im­al hus­bandry farms (Art. 14 WPA):

a.

farms and farm­ing co-op­er­at­ives that keep live­stock;

b.

oth­er en­ter­prises in­volved in com­mer­cial an­im­al hus­bandry; en­ter­prises which keep zoo and cir­cus an­im­als or in­di­vidu­al draft or rid­ing an­im­als or pets are ex­cep­ted.

The cal­cu­la­tion for con­vert­ing the num­ber of live­stock on any en­ter­prise in­to LU (Art. 14 para. 4 WPA) is based on the quant­ity of ma­nure pro­duced by them an­nu­ally. For one LU, this quant­ity is taken as con­tain­ing a total of 105 kg of ni­tro­gen and 15 kg of phos­phor­us.

¹ The nor­mal loc­al farm­ing area (Art. 14 para. 4 WPA) is the ag­ri­cul­tur­al land loc­ated with­in 6 km by road from the live­stock build­ings in which the farm ma­nure is pro­duced.¹⁹

² In or­der to take ac­count of loc­al farm­ing con­di­tions, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may re­duce or ex­tend this lim­it by a max­im­um of 2 km.

¹ Farms that keep poultry or horses and farms serving the pub­lic in­terest need not have their own or leased ag­ri­cul­tur­al land on which at least half of the farm ma­nure ac­cu­mu­lat­ing in the en­ter­prise can be used if it is guar­an­teed that the farm ma­nure will be used by an or­gan­isa­tion or an­oth­er farm.²⁰

² ...²¹

³ Farms serving the pub­lic in­terest (Art. 14 para. 7 let. b WPA) are:

a.

farms that serve ex­per­i­ment­al, re­search or de­vel­op­ment pur­poses (re­search in­sti­tutes, uni­versity farms, per­form­ance test­ing in­sti­tu­tions, in­sem­in­a­tion sta­tions, etc.);

b.²²

pig farms that cov­er at least 25 per cent of the en­ergy needs of pigs with food by-products that come from milk pro­cessing;

c.²³

pig farms that cov­er at least 40 per cent of the en­ergy needs of pigs with food by-products that do not come from milk pro­cessing;

d. ²⁴

pig breed­ing en­ter­prises that cov­er at least 40 per cent of the en­ergy needs of pigs with food by-products that come both from milk pro­cessing and not from milk pro­cessing.

⁴ In mixed an­im­al hus­bandry farms, the ex­cep­tion un­der para­graph 1 ap­plies only to that part of the an­im­al hus­bandry that ful­fils con­di­tions for grant­ing an ex­cep­tion.²⁵

⁵ The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall in each case grant an ex­cep­tion un­der para­graph 1 for a dur­a­tion of five years at most.²⁶

¹ The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that stor­age fa­cil­it­ies for farm ma­nure and li­quid di­gest­ate are reg­u­larly in­spec­ted; the fre­quency of the in­spec­tions shall cor­res­pond to the risk of pol­lu­tion to the wa­ters.²⁹

² The fol­low­ing shall be in­spec­ted:

a.

wheth­er the pre­scribed stor­age ca­pa­city is avail­able;

b.

wheth­er the stor­age fa­cil­it­ies (in­clud­ing pipes) leak;

c.

wheth­er fa­cil­it­ies are in work­ing or­der;

d.

wheth­er the fa­cil­it­ies are op­er­ated in ac­cord­ance with the reg­u­la­tions.

¹ When di­vid­ing their ter­rit­ory in­to wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas (Art. 19 WPA), the can­tons shall in­dic­ate those at par­tic­u­lar risk and the oth­er areas. Those de­scribed in An­nex 4 num­ber 11 as at par­tic­u­lar risk in­clude:

a.

wa­ter pro­tec­tion area A_u for the pro­tec­tion of ex­ploit­able un­der­ground wa­ters;

b.

wa­ter pro­tec­tion area A_o for the pro­tec­tion of wa­ter qual­ity of sur­face wa­ters if this is re­quired to guar­an­tee a spe­cif­ic use of a body of wa­ter;

c.

the area of con­tri­bu­tion Z_u in­ten­ded for the pro­tec­tion of wa­ter qual­ity at ex­ist­ing and planned ground­wa­ter wells serving the pub­lic in­terest if the wa­ter is pol­luted by sub­stances which are not suf­fi­ciently de­graded or re­tained, or if there is a genu­ine risk of pol­lu­tion by such sub­stances;

d.³⁰

the area of con­tri­bu­tion Z_o in­ten­ded for the pro­tec­tion of wa­ter qual­ity of sur­face wa­ters if wa­ter is pol­luted by run-off of pesti­cides or nu­tri­ents.

² They shall des­ig­nate ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones (Art. 20 WPA) de­scribed in An­nex 4 num­ber 12 in or­der to pro­tect ground­wa­ter wells and ground­wa­ter re­charge in­stall­a­tions serving the pub­lic in­terest. They may des­ig­nate ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones even for planned wells and re­charge in­stall­a­tions serving the pub­lic in­terest, the loc­a­tions of which and amount of with­draw­als from which are es­tab­lished.

³ They shall des­ig­nate the ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas de­scribed in An­nex 4 num­ber 13 (Art. 21 WPA) in or­der to pro­tect the un­der­ground wa­ters planned for use.

⁴ They shall base their de­cisions on the des­ig­na­tion of wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas and ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones and areas on ex­ist­ing hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al find­ings. If these are not suf­fi­cient, they shall en­sure that the re­quired hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions are con­duc­ted.

¹ The can­tons shall draw up wa­ters pro­tec­tion maps and ad­just these as ne­ces­sary. The wa­ters pro­tec­tion maps shall in­dic­ate as a min­im­um:

a.

wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas;

b.

ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones;

c.

ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas;

d.

ground­wa­ter out­flow points, wells and re­charge in­stall­a­tions that are of sig­ni­fic­ance for wa­ter sup­ply.

² The wa­ters pro­tec­tion maps shall be ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic. The can­tons shall provide the Fed­er­al Of­fice for the En­vir­on­ment (FOEN) and neigh­bour­ing can­tons con­cerned with the wa­ters pro­tec­tion maps and their an­nu­al modi­fic­a­tions in di­git­al form.³¹

¹ Any per­son who con­structs or al­ters in­stall­a­tions or car­ries out activ­it­ies which rep­res­ent a risk to wa­ters in areas par­tic­u­larly at risk (Art. 29 para. 1) as well as in ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones and areas must take all meas­ures ex­pedi­ent for the pro­tec­tion of the wa­ters ac­cord­ing to the cir­cum­stances and in par­tic­u­lar must:

a.

take the meas­ures re­quired un­der An­nex 4 num­ber 2;

b.

set up the ne­ces­sary mon­it­or­ing, alarm and stand-by ar­range­ments.

² The au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that:

a.

for ex­ist­ing in­stall­a­tions in areas un­der para­graph 1, where there is a genu­ine risk of pol­lu­tion of the wa­ters, meas­ures to pro­tect wa­ters, es­pe­cially those un­der An­nex 4 num­ber 2, are taken, ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances;

b.

ex­ist­ing in­stall­a­tions in ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion Zones S1 and S2 that en­danger a ground­wa­ter well or a re­charge in­stall­a­tion are re­moved with­in an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od of time, and that un­til re­mov­al of these in­stall­a­tions oth­er meas­ures for pro­tect­ing the drink­ing wa­ter are taken, in par­tic­u­lar dis­in­fec­tion or fil­tra­tion.

¹ ...³²

² In the areas par­tic­u­larly at risk (Art. 29) an au­thor­isa­tion is es­pe­cially re­quired for:³³

a.

un­der­ground build­ings;

b.

in­stall­a­tions which dam­age pro­tect­ive lay­ers or aquicludes;

c.

us­ing the ground­wa­ter (in­clud­ing use for heat­ing or cool­ing pur­poses);

d.

per­man­ent drain­age and ir­rig­a­tion;

e.

ex­pos­ure of the ground­wa­ter table;

f.

drill­ings;

g.³⁴

stor­age in­stall­a­tions for li­quid ma­nure and li­quid di­gest­ate;

h.³⁵

stor­age in­stall­a­tions for li­quids that may pol­lute wa­ters already in small quant­it­ies and with a us­able volume of more than 2000 l per stor­age tank;

i.³⁶

stor­age in­stall­a­tions for li­quids that may pol­lute wa­ters in ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones and areas with a us­able volume of more than 450 l;

j.³⁷

tran­ship­ment areas for li­quids which may pol­lute wa­ters.

³ If au­thor­isa­tion is re­quired, the ap­plic­ant must prove that the re­quire­ments for pro­tec­tion of wa­ters are ful­filled and provide the doc­u­ments ne­ces­sary for this (if ne­ces­sary hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions).

⁴ The au­thor­it­ies shall grant an au­thor­isa­tion if ad­equate pro­tec­tion of wa­ters can be guar­an­teed sub­ject to con­di­tions and re­quire­ments. It shall also lay down re­quire­ments for de­com­mis­sion­ing the in­stall­a­tions.

¹ The per­sons re­spons­ible for stor­age in­stall­a­tions for li­quids that may pol­lute wa­ters that re­quire au­thor­isa­tion must ar­range for an ex­tern­al visu­al in­spec­tion to be con­duc­ted every ten years in or­der to check for de­fects.³⁹

² An in­tern­al visu­al in­spec­tion must be con­duc­ted every ten years for:

a.

stor­age tanks with more than 250 000 l us­able volume that do not have a pro­tect­ive con­struc­tion or a double-walled floor;

b.

single-walled un­der­ground stor­age tanks.

³ The per­sons re­spons­ible must ar­range for the in­spec­tion of the prop­er func­tion­ing of the leak de­tec­tion sys­tem in stor­age in­stall­a­tions for li­quids which may pol­lute wa­ters every two years in the case of double-walled con­tain­ers and pipes and every year in the case of single-walled con­tain­ers and pipes.

¹ For with­draw­als from wa­ter­courses (Art. 29 WPA) which com­prise stretches with per­man­ent flow and oth­ers without per­man­ent flow, a per­mit is re­quired if the site of the wa­ter with­draw­al shows per­man­ent flow. The con­di­tions for grant­ing the per­mit must be ful­filled only in the stretches with a per­man­ent flow (Art. 30 WPA).

² If the wa­ters at the site of wa­ter with­draw­al shows no per­man­ent flow, the au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that the re­quired meas­ures un­der Fed­er­al Act of 1 Ju­ly 1966⁴⁰ on the Pro­tec­tion of Nature and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age and the Fed­er­al Act of 21 Ju­ly 1991⁴¹ on Fish and Fish­er­ies are taken.

When de­term­in­ing the eco­lo­gic­al po­ten­tial of a body of wa­ter, con­sid­er­a­tion shall be giv­en to the fol­low­ing:

a.

the eco­lo­gic­al im­port­ance of the body of wa­ter in its cur­rent state;

b.

the po­ten­tial eco­lo­gic­al im­port­ance of the body of wa­ter in a state in which the man-made harm is elim­in­ated to the ex­tent pos­sible at a reas­on­able cost.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall file the ap­plic­a­tion for the ap­prov­al of a pro­tec­tion and util­isa­tion plan (Art. 32 let. c WPA) with the FOEN⁴³.

² The ap­plic­a­tion shall con­tain:

a.

the pro­tec­tion and util­isa­tion plan de­cided on;

b.

the jus­ti­fic­a­tion why the meas­ures planned rep­res­ent suf­fi­cient com­pens­a­tion for a lower min­im­um re­sid­ual flow;

c.

in­form­a­tion on how the planned meas­ures should be made bind­ing on all con­cerned for the dur­a­tion of the li­cense.

³ Com­pens­at­ory meas­ures in the con­text of the pro­tec­tion and util­isa­tion plan are deemed ap­pro­pri­ate if they serve to pro­tect wa­ters or the hab­it­ats de­pend­ing on it. Meas­ures that would be ne­ces­sary in any case, ac­cord­ing to fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions on en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion, are not taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

¹ For wa­ter with­draw­als which are sub­ject to an en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment (EIA), the re­sid­ual flow re­port is part of the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact re­port (Art. 33 para. 4 WPA).

² For wa­ter with­draw­als on which the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment must be con­sul­ted and which are not sub­ject to an EIA, the au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that the opin­ion of the can­ton­al ex­pert body on the re­sid­ual wa­ter re­port or on an amended draft there­of is made avail­able to the FOEN. The FOEN may lim­it it­self to mak­ing a sum­mary re­view of the doc­u­ments.⁴⁴

¹ For wa­ter with­draw­als serving in­stall­a­tions us­ing wa­ter power, the in­vent­ory shall in­clude (Art. 82 para. 1 WPA) as a min­im­um:

a.

a de­scrip­tion of the wa­ter with­draw­al and resti­tu­tion (names, co-or­din­ates, height above sea level and, where ap­pro­pri­ate, names of power sta­tions and dams);

b.

the be­gin­ning and dur­a­tion of the right of use gran­ted, its ex­tent, in par­tic­u­lar the amount of wa­ter ex­tract­able in m³/s as well as the name of the per­son en­titled to ex­tract (the user);

c.

the re­mov­able amount of wa­ter in m³/s;

d.

the re­sid­ual flow main­tained pre­vi­ously with de­tails of the loc­a­tion or the wa­ter en­dow­ment flow in l/s;

e.

oth­er ob­lig­a­tions to trans­fer wa­ter im­posed on the user;

f.

the par­ti­cip­a­tion of the user in main­tain­ing and cor­rect­ing the wa­ters;

g.

fur­ther con­di­tions or in­stall­a­tions in the in­terests of wa­ters pro­tec­tion and fish­er­ies;

h.

the Q347 flow rate, the flow re­gime of the wa­ter­course up­stream of the wa­ter with­draw­al point and the amount with­drawn every month in m³/s, ex­pressed as the av­er­age over sev­er­al years, to the ex­tent that this data is avail­able at the time the in­vent­ory is drawn up;

i.

wheth­er the wa­ter is with­drawn from a wa­ter­course flow­ing through land­scapes or hab­it­ats which are lis­ted in the na­tion­al or can­ton­al in­vent­or­ies.

² For with­draw­als us­ing fixed non-hy­dro­power equip­ment which may be au­thor­ised un­der Art­icle 30 let­ter a WPA, the in­vent­ory shall as a min­im­um state the pur­pose of the with­draw­al and the in­form­a­tion in para­graph 1, let­ters a, b, d, h, and i.

³ For with­draw­als us­ing fixed non-hy­dro­power equip­ment which may be au­thor­ised un­der Art­icle 30 let­ters b or c WPA, the in­vent­ory shall state the in­form­a­tion in para­graph 1 let­ters a and b.

The can­tons shall draw up a list of with­draw­als for the use of wa­ter power from wa­ter­courses without per­man­ent flow.

¹ For every with­draw­al of wa­ter lis­ted in the in­vent­ory un­der Art­icle 36 para­graphs 1 and 2, the re­medi­ation re­port (Art. 82 para. 2 WPA) shall in­dic­ate wheth­er the wa­ter­course re­quires re­medi­ation; if this is the case, the re­port in­dic­ates the reas­ons for such re­medi­ation, its ex­tent and the peri­od of time fore­cast to im­ple­ment it.

² For every wa­ter with­draw­al, the re­port con­tains in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the de­scrip­tion of the wa­ter with­draw­al and re­turn (names, co-or­din­ates, height above sea level and, where ap­pro­pri­ate, names of any power sta­tions or dams);

b.

the rate of Q₃₄₇flow;

c.

data re­lat­ing to the flow re­gime of the wa­ter­course up­stream of the wa­ter with­draw­al point and in the stretch of re­sid­ual wa­ter flow;

d.

the amount with­drawn every month in m³/s ex­pressed as the av­er­age over sev­er­al years.

³ For wa­ter with­draw­als where re­medi­ation is ne­ces­sary, the re­port shall also con­tain in­form­a­tion on:

a.

re­medi­ation meas­ures which may be im­posed without in­fringing rights of use which jus­ti­fy a claim for com­pens­a­tion by the user (Art. 80 para. 1 WPA);

b.

more ex­tens­ive re­medi­ation meas­ures which are ne­ces­sary be­cause of over­rid­ing pub­lic in­terests (Art. 80 para. 2 WPA); for wa­ter­courses flow­ing through land­scapes or hab­it­ats which are lis­ted in na­tion­al or can­ton­al in­vent­or­ies, the re­port shall name the spe­cial re­quire­ments for the wa­ter­course arising from the pro­tec­tion tar­gets defined in the in­vent­ory;

c.

type of re­medi­ation meas­ures (high­er levels of wa­ter en­dow­ment, struc­tur­al, op­er­a­tion­al and oth­er meas­ures);

d.

the ex­pec­ted sched­ule for com­ple­tion of the re­medi­ation meas­ures.

¹ The user must provide the au­thor­it­ies with the in­form­a­tion re­quired to draw up the in­vent­ory and the re­medi­ation re­port.

² The au­thor­it­ies may re­quire the user to carry out flow meas­ure­ments.

¹ The can­tons shall sub­mit the in­vent­or­ies, lists and re­medi­ation re­ports to the FOEN.

² They shall up­date the in­vent­or­ies and lists.

³ They shall en­sure that the in­vent­or­ies, lists and re­medi­ation re­ports are made ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic after con­sult­ing those con­cerned. Busi­ness secrecy shall be pre­served.

Art­icles 36–40 ap­ply by ana­logy to planned wa­ter with­draw­als for which a li­cence was gran­ted be­fore the entry in­to force of the Wa­ters Pro­tec­tion Act (Art. 83 WPA).

¹ In bi­otopes of a na­tion­al im­port­ance, in can­ton­al nature con­ser­va­tion areas, in mire land­scapes of ex­cep­tion­al beauty and na­tion­al im­port­ance, in wa­ter bird and mi­grat­ory bird re­serves of in­ter­na­tion­al or na­tion­al im­port­ance and, in the case of wa­ters-re­lated pro­tec­tion tar­gets, in land­scapes of na­tion­al im­port­ance and can­ton­al land­scape con­ser­va­tion areas the width of the space provided for wa­ters must amount to at least:

a.

for wa­ter­courses with a chan­nel bed of less than 1 m nat­ur­al width: 11 m;

b.

for wa­ter­courses with a chan­nel bed of 1–5 m nat­ur­al width: 6 times the width of the chan­nel bed plus 5 m;

c.

for wa­ter­courses with a chan­nel bed of more than 5 m nat­ur­al width: the width of the chan­nel bed plus 30 m.

² In oth­er areas, the width of the space provided for wa­ters must amount to at least:

a.

for wa­ter­courses with a chan­nel bed of less than 2 m nat­ur­al width: 11 m;

b.

for wa­ter­courses with a chan­nel bed of 2–15 m nat­ur­al width: 2.5 times the width of the chan­nel bed plus 7 m.

³ The width of the space provided for wa­ters cal­cu­lated in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 and 2 must be in­creased where this is re­quired to guar­an­tee:

a.

pro­tec­tion against flood­ing;

b.

the space re­quired for re­hab­il­it­a­tion;

c.

the pro­tec­tion tar­gets for wa­ter­courses un­der para­graph 1 and oth­er over­rid­ing in­terests of nature and land­scape con­ser­va­tion;

d.

a use of the wa­ters.

⁴ Provided pro­tec­tion against flood­ing is guar­an­teed, the width of the space provided for wa­ters may be ad­ap­ted:

a.

to the struc­tur­al con­di­tions in densely built-up areas;

b.

to the to­po­graph­ic con­di­tions on stretches of wa­ters:

1.

in which the wa­ters largely fill the val­ley floor, and

2.

that have slopes on both sides that are too steep to per­mit farm­ing activ­it­ies.⁴⁷

⁵ In the ab­sence of any over­rid­ing in­terests to the con­trary, de­term­in­ing the space provided for wa­ters may be dis­pensed with if the wa­ters:

a.

are loc­ated in forest or in areas, that are not de­signed moun­tain- or val­ley areas in ac­cord­ance with the ag­ri­cul­ture le­gis­la­tion in the ar­able land re­gister;

b.

are cul­ver­ted;

c.

are ar­ti­fi­cially laid out; or

d.⁴⁸

are very small.

¹ The width of the space provided for wa­ters must amount to at least 15 m meas­ured from the shoreline.

² The width of the space provided for wa­ters cal­cu­lated in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 must be in­creased where this is re­quired to guar­an­tee:

a.

pro­tec­tion against flood­ing;

b.

the space re­quired for re­hab­il­it­a­tion;

c.

over­rid­ing in­terests of the nature- and land­scape con­ser­va­tion;

d.

the use of the wa­ters.

³ The width of the space provided for wa­ters may be ad­ap­ted to the struc­tur­al con­di­tions in densely built-up areas provided pro­tec­tion against flood­ing is guar­an­teed.

⁴ In the ab­sence of any over­rid­ing in­terests to the con­trary, de­term­in­ing the space provided for wa­ters may be dis­pensed with if the wa­ters:

a.

are loc­ated in forest or in areas, that are not de­signed moun­tain- or val­ley areas in ac­cord­ance with the ag­ri­cul­ture le­gis­la­tion in the ar­able land re­gister;

b.

have a sur­face area of less than 0.5 ha; or

c.

are ar­ti­fi­cially laid out.

¹ In the space provided for wa­ters, only fixed in­stall­a­tions serving the pub­lic in­terest such as foot­paths and hik­ing trails, run-of-river power plants or bridges may be built. The au­thor­ity may au­thor­ise the fol­low­ing in­stall­a­tions provided there are no over­rid­ing in­terests to the con­trary:

a.

in densely built-up areas, in­stall­a­tions that meet zon­ing re­quire­ments;

a^bis.49

in­stall­a­tions that meet zon­ing re­quire­ments out­side densely built-up areas on in­di­vidu­al plots of ground that have not been built on with­in a series of sev­er­al plots of ground that have been built on;

b.

ag­ri­cul­tur­al and forestry tracked and gravel paths with a dis­tance of at least 3m from the shoreline of the wa­ters if to­po­graph­ic­ally lim­ited spa­tial con­di­tions per­tain;

c.

fixed parts of in­stall­a­tions that aid wa­ter with­draw­al or dis­charge;

d.⁵⁰

small in­stall­a­tions that serve the use of the wa­ters.⁵¹

² The con­tin­ued ex­ist­ence of in­stall­a­tions and per­man­ent crops in terms of Art­icle 22 para­graph 1 let­ters a–c, e and g–i of the Ag­ri­cul­tur­al Terms Or­din­ance of 7 Decem­ber 1998⁵² in the space provided for wa­ters that are law­fully con­struc­ted and useable as in­ten­ded is in prin­ciple pro­tec­ted.⁵³

³ No fer­til­isers and plant health products may be used in the space provided for wa­ters. In­di­vidu­al treat­ments of prob­lem plants are per­mit­ted out­side a 3-metre-wide strip along the bank where these can­not be con­trolled mech­an­ic­ally at a reas­on­able cost.

⁴ The space provided for wa­ters may be used for ag­ri­cul­tur­al pur­poses if it is used in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments of the Dir­ect Pay­ments Or­din­ance of 23 Oc­to­ber 2013⁵⁴ as straw fields, hedgerows, field or ri­pari­an wood­land, ri­pari­an mead­ow, ex­tens­ively used mead­ow, ex­tens­ively used pas­ture ground or wooded pas­ture ground. These re­quire­ments also ap­ply to the use of areas out­side the ag­ri­cul­tur­al land in use.⁵⁵

^4bis If in the case of roads and paths with a base lay­er or rail­way lines that run along­side wa­ters the space provided for wa­ters on the land side ex­tends only a few metres bey­ond the trans­port in­fra­struc­ture, the au­thor­ity may au­thor­ise ex­cep­tions from the man­age­ment re­stric­tions in para­graphs 3 and 4 for the part on the land side provided no fer­til­isers or plant health products can enter the wa­ter.⁵⁶

⁵ Meas­ures against nat­ur­al erosion of the banks of a wa­ter­course are per­mit­ted only if re­quired for pro­tec­tion against flood­ing or to pre­vent an un­reas­on­able loss of ag­ri­cul­tur­al land.

⁶ The fol­low­ing do not ap­ply:

a.

para­graphs 1–5 to that part of the space provided for wa­ters that ex­clus­ively serves to guar­an­tee the use of the wa­ters;

b.

para­graphs 3 and 4 to the space provided for cul­ver­ted wa­ters.

¹ Ar­able farm­ing land with the qual­ity of crop ro­ta­tion areas in the space provided for wa­ters must be shown sep­ar­ately by the can­tons when mak­ing the in­vent­ory of crop ro­ta­tion areas in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 28 of the Spa­tial Plan­ning Or­din­ance of 28 June 2000⁵⁸. It may con­tin­ue to be in­cluded in the can­ton­al min­im­um of crop ro­ta­tion areas. If a re­lated fed­er­al de­cree is is­sued (Art. 5 WPA), these areas may be in­tens­ively farmed in emer­gency situ­ations.

² Al­tern­at­ive land must be provided in ac­cord­ance with the sec­tor­al plan for crop ro­ta­tion areas (Art. 29 of the Spa­tial Plan­ning Or­din­ance of 28 June 2000) in com­pens­a­tion for ar­able farm­ing land with the qual­ity of crop ro­ta­tion areas in the space provided for wa­ters that is re­quired to im­ple­ment struc­tur­al flood pro­tec­tion or re­hab­il­it­a­tion meas­ures.

¹ The can­tons shall de­vise the prin­ciples re­quired to plan the re­hab­il­it­a­tion of wa­ter­courses. The prin­ciples shall in­clude in­form­a­tion on the fol­low­ing in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the eco­mor­pho­lo­gic­al con­di­tion of the wa­ters;

b.

the in­stall­a­tions in the space provided for wa­ters;

c.

the eco­lo­gic­al po­ten­tial and the ag­ri­cul­tur­al im­port­ance of the wa­ters.

² They shall set out in a plan for a peri­od of 20 years the stretches of wa­ter to be re­hab­il­it­ated, the form of the re­hab­il­it­a­tion meas­ures and the dead­lines by which the meas­ures must be im­ple­men­ted, and shall co­ordin­ate the plan with the neigh­bour­ing can­tons to the ex­tent that this is re­quired. Re­hab­il­it­a­tion pro­jects shall primar­ily be planned where their be­ne­fits:

a.

are sub­stan­tial for nature and the land­scape;

b.

are sub­stan­tial com­pared with the prob­able cost;

c.

may be in­creased through co­ordin­a­tion with oth­er meas­ures to pro­tect nat­ur­al hab­it­ats or to pre­vent flood­ing.

³ They shall ad­opt the plans un­der para­graph 2 for wa­ter­courses by 31 Decem­ber 2014 and for stand­ing wa­ters by 31 Decem­ber 2022. They shall sub­mit the plans to the FOEN one year be­fore their ad­op­tion so that the FOEN may com­ment there­on.⁵⁹

⁴ They shall re­new the plans un­der para­graph 2 every 12 years for a peri­od of 20 years and shall sub­mit these plans to the FOEN one year be­fore their ad­op­tion so that the FOEN may com­ment there­on.

There is ser­i­ous harm to in­di­gen­ous flora and fauna and to their hab­it­ats due to hy­dropeak­ing where:

a.

the flow rate for up­surge is at least 1.5 times great­er than for down­surge; and

b.

the site-spe­cif­ic quant­ity, com­pos­i­tion and di­versity of the plant and an­im­al com­munit­ies are changed to their det­ri­ment, in par­tic­u­lar be­cause reg­u­larly and in an un­nat­ur­al man­ner fish are run ashore, fish spawn­ing grounds are des­troyed, aquat­ic an­im­als are washed away, tur­bid­ity arises or the wa­ter tem­per­at­ure is altered in an un­law­ful man­ner.

¹ The can­tons shall sub­mit to the FOEN a plan for meas­ures to re­medi­ate hy­dro­power plants that cause hy­dropeak­ing in ac­cord­ance with the pro­ced­ure de­scribed in An­nex 4a num­ber 2.

² The per­sons re­spons­ible for hy­dro­power plants must grant ac­cess to the au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for the plan and provide the re­quired in­form­a­tion, in par­tic­u­lar on:

a.

the co­ordin­ates and the des­ig­na­tion the in­di­vidu­al parts of the plant;

b.

the flow rates of the wa­ter­course con­cerned with meas­ured val­ues at in­ter­vals of no more than 15 minutes (hy­dro­graph) over a peri­od cov­er­ing the past five years; If these meas­ured val­ues are not avail­able, the hy­dro­graph may be cal­cu­lated us­ing data re­lat­ing to hy­dro-elec­tric power pro­duc­tion at the plant and the wa­ter flow;

c.

the meas­ures car­ried out and planned to re­duce the ef­fects of hy­dropeak­ing;

d.

the avail­able res­ults of the study on the ef­fects of hy­dropeak­ing;

e.

the planned struc­tur­al and op­er­a­tion­al changes at the plant.

¹ Based on the meas­ures plan, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity shall or­der the re­medi­ation of hy­dropeak­ing and re­quire the per­sons re­spons­ible for hy­dro­power plants to ex­am­ine vari­ous types of re­medi­ation meas­ure in or­der to im­ple­ment the plan.

² Be­fore it de­cides on the re­medi­ation pro­ject, it shall con­sult the FOEN. With a view to an ap­plic­a­tion un­der Art­icle 30 para­graph 1 of the En­ergy Or­din­ance of 1 Novem­ber 2017⁶¹ (EnO), the FOEN shall veri­fy wheth­er the cri­ter­ia of An­nex 3 num­ber 2 EnO are met.⁶²

³ The per­sons re­spons­ible for hy­dro­power plants shall veri­fy the ef­fect­ive­ness of the meas­ures taken as re­quired by the au­thor­ity.

¹ Be­fore an au­thor­ity au­thor­ises the flush­ing out or empty­ing of an im­pound­ment, it shall en­sure that sed­i­ments are re­moved oth­er than by wash­ing away if this is en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible and eco­nom­ic­ally ac­cept­able.

² When wash­ing away sed­i­ments the au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that com­munit­ies of plants, an­im­als and mi­cro-or­gan­isms are harmed as little as pos­sible, in par­tic­u­lar by lay­ing down:

a.

time and type of flush­ing out or empty­ing;

b.

the max­im­um con­cen­tra­tion of sus­pen­ded mat­ter in the wa­ter which must be re­spec­ted dur­ing the flush­ing out or empty­ing;

c.

to what ex­tent wash­ing away must be car­ried out so that dur­ing the flush­ing out or empty­ing, fine mat­ter de­pos­ited in wa­ter­courses is re­moved.

³ Para­graphs 1 and 2 do not ap­ply to the ab­rupt lower­ing of the wa­ter level fol­low­ing an ex­cep­tion­al event (Art. 40 para. 3 WPA).

A change in the bed load budget causes ser­i­ous harm to the in­di­gen­ous flora and fauna and their hab­it­ats if in­stall­a­tions such as hy­dro­power plants, gravel ex­cav­a­tion sites, bed load traps or river con­trol struc­tures al­ter the mor­pho­lo­gic­al struc­tures or the mor­pho­lo­gic­al dy­nam­ics of the wa­ters to their det­ri­ment.

¹ The can­tons shall sub­mit a plan to the FOEN of their meas­ures to re­medi­ate the bed load budget in ac­cord­ance with the pro­ced­ure de­scribed in An­nex 4a num­ber 3.

² The per­sons re­spons­ible for in­stall­a­tions must al­low ac­cess to the au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for the plan and provide the re­quired in­form­a­tion, in par­tic­u­lar on:

a.

the de­tails and the des­ig­na­tion of the in­stall­a­tions and in the case of hy­dro­power plants the in­di­vidu­al parts of the in­stall­a­tion;

b.

how the bed load is dealt with;

c.

the meas­ures car­ried out and the planned in or­der to im­prove the bed load budget;

d.

the avail­able res­ults of the study of the bed load budget;

e.

the planned struc­tur­al and op­er­a­tion­al changes to the in­stall­a­tion.

¹ In the case of in­stall­a­tions which ac­cord­ing to the plan re­quire meas­ures to re­medi­ate the bed load budget, the can­tons shall pre­pare a study on the nature and ex­tent of the re­quired meas­ures.

² Based on the study, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity shall in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 or­der the re­medi­ation meas­ures. In the case of hy­dro­power plants, the bed load must wherever pos­sible be made to pass through the in­stall­a­tion.

³ Be­fore it de­cides on the re­medi­ation pro­ject in the case of hy­dro­power plants, it shall con­sult the FOEN. The FOEN shall ex­am­ine with a view to an ap­plic­a­tion un­der Art­icle 30 para­graph 1 EnO⁶⁹ wheth­er the cri­ter­ia of An­nex 3 num­ber 2 EnO are met.⁷⁰

⁴ The per­sons re­spons­ible for hy­dro­power plants shall veri­fy the ef­fect­ive­ness of the meas­ures taken in ac­cord­ance with in­struc­tions from the can­ton­al au­thor­ity.

¹ In or­der that the bed load budget in a wa­ter­course is not un­fa­vour­ably in­flu­enced by ex­trac­tion of gravel, sand or oth­er ma­ter­i­als (Art. 44 para. 2 let. c WPA), the au­thor­it­ies must en­sure that:

a.

the quant­ity of bed load ex­trac­ted from the wa­ter­course does not ex­ceed the nat­ur­al sup­ply;

b.

the ex­trac­tion does not in the long term lead to a sub­sid­ence of the bot­tom out­side the ex­trac­tion peri­met­er;

c.

the ex­trac­tion does not render im­possible the main­ten­ance and re-es­tab­lish­ment of in­vent­or­ied flood­plains;

d.

the ex­trac­tion does not lead to a sub­stan­tial change in the particle size dis­tri­bu­tion of the bot­tom ma­ter­i­al out­side the ex­trac­tion peri­met­er.

² Ex­trac­tion ac­cord­ing to para­graph 1 should not lead to tur­bid­ity that may im­pair fish­ing wa­ters.

¹ Drain­age wa­ter from un­der­ground build­ings must be con­tained and chan­nelled off in such a way that it can­not be pol­luted by such con­struc­tion op­er­a­tions, in par­tic­u­lar by ex­cep­tion­al events. This does not ap­ply to small amounts of drain­age wa­ter if re­ten­tion meas­ures pre­vent the pol­lu­tion of the re­ceiv­ing wa­ters.

² For the dis­charge of drain­age wa­ter from un­der­ground build­ings in­to wa­ter­courses, the fol­low­ing ap­plies:

a.

the spill­way con­struc­tion must be such as to en­sure ho­mo­gen­eous and rap­id mix­ing of the wa­ter;

b.

the tem­per­at­ure of the re­ceiv­ing wa­ters must not be raised over its near as pos­sible nat­ur­al state by more than 3 °C; if the stretch be­longs to a trout zone, the tem­per­at­ure must not be raised by more than 1.5 °C;

c.

the dis­charge must not res­ult in the wa­ter tem­per­at­ure ex­ceed­ing 25 °C.

³ De­pend­ing on loc­al cir­cum­stances the au­thor­it­ies shall spe­cify:

a.

re­quire­ments for dis­charge in­to lakes and in­filt­ra­tion;

b.

ad­di­tion­al re­quire­ments for dis­charge in­to wa­ter­courses if ne­ces­sary.

¹ The can­tons shall en­force this Or­din­ance un­less it del­eg­ates en­force­ment to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

² If the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies ap­ply oth­er fed­er­al laws, or in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies or de­cisions that re­late to the sub­ject mat­ter of this Or­din­ance, they shall also en­force this Or­din­ance. The co­oper­a­tion of the FOEN and the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies is gov­erned by Art­icle 48 para­graph 1 WPA; stat­utory du­ties of secrecy are re­served.

³ At the re­quest of the can­tons, the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies shall take ac­count of their pro­vi­sions and meas­ures, un­less ful­fil­ment of the tasks of the fed­er­al au­thor­ity is thereby rendered im­possible or made dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult.

⁴ If the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies en­act ad­min­is­trat­ive or­din­ances such as guidelines or in­struc­tions that con­cern wa­ters pro­tec­tion, they shall con­sult the FOEN.

⁵ The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions (the De­part­ment) may, if re­quired, amend the lists of para­met­ers and the nu­mer­ic­al re­quire­ments for wa­ter qual­ity in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 2 num­ber 11 para­graph 3, num­ber 12 para­graph 5 and num­ber 22 para­graph 2.⁷⁴

¹ Where re­quired, the can­tons shall co­ordin­ate meas­ures un­der this Or­din­ance with each oth­er and with meas­ures in oth­er sec­tors. They shall also en­sure the co­ordin­a­tion of the meas­ures with those of neigh­bour­ing can­tons.⁷⁶

^1bis They shall take ac­count of plans un­der this Or­din­ance when draw­ing up struc­ture and land use plans.⁷⁷

² In draw­ing up the sup­ply plan for drink­ing wa­ter, they in­clude both ground­wa­ter re­sources already used and those in­ten­ded for ex­ploit­a­tion and en­sure that wa­ter with­draw­als are co-or­din­ated so that no ex­cess­ive with­draw­als take place and the ground­wa­ter re­sources are used eco­nom­ic­ally.

³ In grant­ing au­thor­isa­tions for dis­charges and in­filt­ra­tion un­der Art­icles 6-8 the au­thor­it­ies shall take ac­count of both the re­quire­ments of the En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Act of 7 Oc­to­ber 1983⁷⁸ on pub­lic pro­tec­tion from odour emis­sions as well as the re­quire­ments of the Em­ploy­ment Act of 13 March 1964⁷⁹ and the Ac­ci­dent In­sur­ance Act of 20 March 1981⁸⁰ on pro­tec­tion of the health of staff at waste wa­ter treat­ment plants.

¹ If the au­thor­it­ies es­tab­lish that a body of wa­ter does not ful­fil the re­quire­ments of An­nex 2 on wa­ter qual­ity or that the spe­cif­ic use of the body of wa­ter can­not be guar­an­teed they shall:

a.

de­term­ine and as­sess the type and ex­tent of the pol­lu­tion;

b.

de­term­ine the causes of the pol­lu­tion;

c.

as­sess the ef­fect­ive­ness of pos­sible meas­ures;

d.

en­sure that the re­quired meas­ures are un­der­taken based on the rel­ev­ant reg­u­la­tions.

² If sev­er­al sources of pol­lu­tion are in­volved, the meas­ures to be taken by those re­spons­ible must be co­ordin­ated.

¹ The can­tons shall sur­vey and in­spect at least once every four years the filling and wash­ing sta­tions of pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial users of plant pro­tec­tion products where spray­ers are filled or washed out.

² They shall en­sure that any de­fects iden­ti­fied are rec­ti­fied im­me­di­ately or with­in two years at the latest, de­pend­ing on the sever­ity of the risk of pol­lu­tion to the wa­ters.

³ They shall re­port to the FOEN every four years on the status of the sur­veys, in­spec­tions, de­fects iden­ti­fied and their rec­ti­fic­a­tion.

¹ In­vest­ig­a­tions and as­sess­ments are sub­ject to the re­cog­nised state of the art; in par­tic­u­lar, the rel­ev­ant stand­ards of the European Com­mit­tee for Stand­ard­isa­tion (CEN)⁸² or oth­er stand­ards that provide equi­val­ent res­ults ap­ply.

² In­so­far as this Or­din­ance con­tains no reg­u­la­tions on the type and fre­quency of sampling or the as­sess­ment of com­pli­ance with re­quire­ments, the au­thor­it­ies shall spe­cify such reg­u­la­tions on a case-by-case basis.

³ The can­tons shall no­ti­fy the FOEN of the res­ults of their in­vest­ig­a­tions and find­ings re­gard­ing pesti­cides in wa­ters by 1 June of each year as spe­cified by the FOEN.⁸³

¹ The FOEN shall no­ti­fy the au­thor­isa­tion bod­ies for plant pro­tec­tion products and biocid­al products of pesti­cides for au­thor­isa­tion re­view if:

a.

these or their de­grad­a­tion products re­peatedly and widely ex­ceed the lim­it value of 0.1 µg/l in wa­ters used or in­ten­ded for use for drink­ing wa­ter (Art. 9 para. 3 let. a WPA); or

b.

these re­peatedly and widely ex­ceed the eco­tox­ic­o­lo­gic­al lim­it val­ues in sur­face wa­ters (Art. 9 para. 3 let. b WPA).

² The eco­tox­ic­o­lo­gic­al lim­it val­ues are the nu­mer­ic­al re­quire­ments for wa­ter qual­ity in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 2 No 11 para­graph 3 Table num­ber 4 which de­vi­ate from the gen­er­al value of 0.1 µg/l.

³ A lim­it value in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 9 para­graph 3 WPA is con­sidered to be re­peatedly and widely ex­ceeded for wa­ters that are used or in­ten­ded for use for drink­ing wa­ter if:

a.

it is ex­ceeded in at least three can­tons with­in one year;

b.

it is ex­ceeded in at least five per cent of all wa­ters stud­ied; and

c.

a dis­tri­bu­tion ac­cord­ing to let­ters a and b is meas­ured in at least two out of five con­sec­ut­ive years.

⁴ A lim­it value in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 9 para­graph 3 WPA is con­sidered to be re­peatedly and widely ex­ceeded for sur­face wa­ters if:

a.

it is ex­ceeded in at least three can­tons with­in one year;

b.

it is ex­ceeded in at least 10 per cent of all wa­ters stud­ied; and

c.

a dis­tri­bu­tion ac­cord­ing to let­ters a and b is meas­ured in at least two out of five con­sec­ut­ive years.

¹ The FOEN shall provide in­form­a­tion on the state of wa­ters and wa­ters pro­tec­tion, provided this is in the in­terest of Switzer­land as a whole. In par­tic­u­lar it shall pub­lish re­ports on the state of wa­ters pro­tec­tion in Switzer­land. The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall provide the ne­ces­sary in­form­a­tion.

² The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall provide in­form­a­tion on the state of wa­ters and wa­ters pro­tec­tion in their can­ton. At the same time they shall also provide in­form­a­tion on the meas­ures taken and their im­pact and on bathing sites where the re­quire­ments for bathing are not met (An­nex 2 no 11 para. 1 let. e).⁸⁵

The FOEN shall provide spe­cific­a­tions for the min­im­um geodata mod­els and present­a­tion mod­els for the of­fi­cial geodata un­der this Or­din­ance for which it is des­ig­nated fed­er­al spe­cial­ist au­thor­ity in An­nex 1 to the Geoin­form­a­tion Or­din­ance of 21 May 2008.⁸⁷

¹ The De­part­ment is au­thor­ised to ap­prove de­cisions and re­com­mend­a­tions that are based on the fol­low­ing in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments, with the agree­ment of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Edu­ca­tion and Re­search:⁹⁰

a.

con­ven­tion of 22 Septem­ber 1992⁹¹ for the Pro­tec­tion of the Mar­ine En­vir­on­ment of the North-East At­lantic (OS­PAR Con­ven­tion);

b.

con­ven­tion of 29 April 1963⁹² on the In­ter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Pro­tec­tion of the Rhine against Pol­lu­tion;

c.

con­ven­tion of 3 Decem­ber 1976⁹³ on the Pro­tec­tion of the Rhine against Chem­ic­al Pol­lu­tion.

² The FOEN shall sup­ply the ap­proved de­cisions and re­com­mend­a­tions to third parties on re­quest.

³ The De­part­ment shall elect mem­bers of the Swiss del­eg­a­tions to the inter-state com­mis­sions for pro­tec­tion of wa­ters.⁹⁴

The level of the charge in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 60b WPA amounts to 9 francs per res­id­ent per an­num. The charge is based on the num­ber of res­id­ents that are con­nec­ted to the waste wa­ter treat­ment plant on 1 Janu­ary of the cal­en­dar year in which the charge is col­lec­ted.

The can­tons must:

a.

no­ti­fy the FOEN each year by 31 March of the num­ber of res­id­ents that are con­nec­ted to each waste wa­ter treat­ment plant on their ter­rit­ory as of 1 Janu­ary of the cal­en­dar year in ques­tion;

b.

sub­mit to the FOEN by 31 Oc­to­ber of each cal­en­dar year the fi­nal ac­counts with re­quests for com­pens­at­ory pay­ments un­der Art­icle 60b para­graph 2 WPA that are re­ceived by 30 Septem­ber of the same cal­en­dar year.

¹ The FOEN shall in­voice the charge to the sub­jects li­able to pay by 1 June in the cal­en­dar year con­cerned. It shall is­sue a rul­ing on the charge in the event of any dis­pute over the in­voice.

² At the re­quest of the can­ton, the FOEN may in­voice the can­ton for the charge if the can­ton con­firms that it col­lects the charge from the waste wa­ter treat­ment plants on its ter­rit­ory on the same terms as those of the FOEN. This re­quest must be sub­mit­ted to the FOEN by 31 March.

³ Pay­ment must be made with­in 60 days of the due date. The charge be­comes due on re­ceipt of the in­voice or, if the in­voice is dis­puted, on the rul­ing on the charge tak­ing full leg­al ef­fect in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1. In the event of late pay­ment, in­terest of 5 per cent be­comes due.⁹⁶

¹ The right to col­lect the charge lapses ten years from the end of the cal­en­dar year in which it arises.

² The time lim­it­a­tion peri­od is in­ter­rup­ted and re­star­ted:

a.

if the sub­ject li­able to the charge ac­know­ledges the right to col­lect it;

b.

by any of­fi­cial act by which the right to col­lect the charge is en­forced against the sub­ject li­able to pay it.

³ The right to col­lect the charge ex­pires in every case 15 years from the end of the cal­en­dar year in which it arises.

¹ The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments made to in­stall­a­tions and equip­ment for ni­tro­gen re­mov­al (Art. 61 para. 1 WPA) is gov­erned by the num­ber of tonnes of ni­tro­gen re­moved each year.

² In­so­far as it is ne­ces­sary to com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments or de­cisions of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions, the ex­tent and com­plex­ity of the meas­ures may also be taken in­to ac­count.

³ The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments shall be agreed between the FOEN and the can­ton con­cerned.

¹ Com­pens­at­ory pay­ments in re­spect of meas­ures to elim­in­ate or­gan­ic trace sub­stances un­der Art­icle 61a para­graph 1 WPA shall be made to the can­tons on a case-by-case basis.

² If the meas­ure giv­ing rise to the com­pens­at­ory pay­ment is not im­ple­men­ted with­in five years of pay­ment be­ing as­sured, the as­sur­ance is no longer val­id.

³ If sew­ers are con­struc­ted in­stead of in­stall­a­tions and equip­ment to elim­in­ate or­gan­ic trace sub­stances, the max­im­um costs at­trib­ut­able are those that could have aris­en in the event of meas­ures be­ing taken at the waste wa­ter treat­ment plant it­self.

⁴ Be­fore the au­thor­ity de­cides on the meas­ure, it shall con­sult the FOEN.

Com­pens­at­ory pay­ments made in re­spect of waste dis­pos­al in­stall­a­tions eli­gible for sub­sidies (Art. 62 paras 1 and 2 WPA) shall be made on a case by case basis for plan­ning, ini­tial es­tab­lish­ment and ex­ten­sion.

¹ The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments made in re­spect of meas­ures in ag­ri­cul­ture (Art. 62a WPA) is gov­erned by the prop­er­ties and the num­ber of kilo­grams of the sub­stances that are pre­ven­ted from wash­ing away or leach­ing each year.

² For meas­ures that res­ult in changes in farm struc­tures, the level is also gov­erned by the at­trib­ut­able costs.

³ The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments shall be agreed between the Fed­er­al Of­fice for Ag­ri­cul­ture (FO­AG) and the can­ton con­cerned.

¹ The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments made for plan­ning meas­ures to re­hab­il­it­ate wa­ters (Art. 62b para. 1 WPA) is gov­erned by the length the bod­ies of wa­ter to which the plan relates.

² The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments shall be agreed between the FOEN and the can­ton con­cerned.

¹ The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments for meas­ures to re­hab­il­it­ate wa­ters (Art. 62b para. 1 WPA) is gov­erned by:

a.

the length of the stretch of wa­ter that is to be re­hab­il­it­ated or is opened by the re­mov­al of ob­struc­tions;

b.

the width of the chan­nel bed of the wa­ter­course;

c.

the width of the space provided for the wa­ters that are to be re­hab­il­it­ated;

d.

the be­ne­fits of re­hab­il­it­a­tion for nature and the land­scape in com­par­is­on with the prob­able costs;

e.

the be­ne­fits of re­hab­il­it­a­tion for re­cre­ation;

f.

the qual­ity of the meas­ures.

² The level of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments shall be agreed between the FOEN and the can­ton con­cerned.

³ Com­pens­at­ory pay­ments may be made in­di­vidu­ally if the meas­ures:

a.

cost more than five mil­lion francs;

b.

have a supra­can­ton­al im­pact or con­cern bor­der wa­ters;

c.

af­fect pro­tec­ted zones or prop­er­ties lis­ted in na­tion­al in­vent­or­ies;

d.

re­quire a com­plex or spe­cial ex­pert as­sess­ment due to the pos­sible al­tern­at­ives or for oth­er reas­ons; or

e.

were un­fore­see­able.

⁴ The con­tri­bu­tion to the at­trib­ut­able costs of the meas­ures un­der para­graph 3 shall amount to between 35 and 80 per cent and is gov­erned by the cri­ter­ia lis­ted in para­graph 1.

⁵ Com­pens­at­ory pay­ments for re­hab­il­it­a­tion shall only be gran­ted if the can­ton con­cerned has drawn up a re­hab­il­it­a­tion plan that meets the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 41d.

⁶ No com­pens­at­ory pay­ments shall be gran­ted un­der Art­icle 62b para­graph 1 WPA for meas­ures re­quired un­der Art­icle 4 of the Fed­er­al Act of 21 June 1991¹⁰² on Hy­draul­ic En­gin­eer­ing.

¹ Com­pens­at­ory pay­ments for as­cer­tain­ing the causes of in­ad­equate wa­ter qual­ity in an im­port­ant body of wa­ter with a view to car­ry­ing out re­medi­ation meas­ures (Art. 64 para. 1 WPA) will be paid on a case-by-case basis in­so­far as the pro­jects con­cern the state of the body of wa­ter and its trib­u­tar­ies.

² The com­pens­at­ory pay­ments for the pro­vi­sion of fun­da­ment­als amount to 30 per cent of the at­trib­ut­able costs and those for the in­vent­or­ies on wa­ter sup­ply in­stall­a­tions and ground­wa­ter re­sources (Art. 64 para. 3 WPA) 40 per cent of the at­trib­ut­able costs.

¹ Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for the train­ing of spe­cial­ists (Art. 64 para. 2 WPA) amounts to:

a.

a max­im­um of 25 per cent of the costs;

b.

a max­im­um of 40 per cent of the costs in the case of pro­jects that are par­tic­u­larly ex­pens­ive giv­en the num­ber of prob­able par­ti­cipants.

² Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic (Art. 64 para. 2 WPA) may be gran­ted to pro­jects if:

a.

they are of sig­ni­fic­ance for Switzer­land as a whole; and

b.

provided the in­form­a­tion doc­u­ments are made avail­able for dis­tri­bu­tion throughout Switzer­land.

³ The fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic amounts to:

a.

a max­im­um of 40 per cent the costs for the pre­par­a­tion of doc­u­ments;

b.

a max­im­um of 20 per cent the costs for the con­duct of in­form­a­tion cam­paigns.

⁴ The FOEN shall grant fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for the train­ing of spe­cial­ists and for the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic on a case-by-case basis.

¹ A risk guar­an­tee for prom­ising new forms of in­stall­a­tions and equip­ment (Art. 64a WPA), that per­form a pub­lic ser­vice may be gran­ted provided com­pany guar­an­tees are not avail­able.

² The risk guar­an­tee ap­plies to the costs in­curred in rec­ti­fy­ing de­fects or if ne­ces­sary for the re­con­struc­tion of the in­stall­a­tions and equip­ment in the first five years after be­gin­ning op­er­a­tions must, provided they are not made ne­ces­sary through the fault of the per­son re­spons­ible for the in­stall­a­tion or equip­ment.

³ The risk guar­an­tee amounts to at least 20 but no more than 60 per cent of the costs in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2.

⁴ For the pro­ced­ure, Art­icles 61c and 61d ap­ply by ana­logy.

¹ At­trib­ut­able costs are those costs that are genu­inely in­curred and are dir­ectly con­nec­ted with im­ple­ment­ing pro­jects giv­ing rise to en­ti­tle­ment to sub­sidy. These in­clude the cost of pi­lot pro­jects, and in the case of the re­hab­il­it­a­tion of bod­ies of wa­ter, the cost of ac­quir­ing the re­quired land.

² Costs that are not at­trib­ut­able are in par­tic­u­lar fees and taxes.

¹ The can­ton shall sub­mit the ap­plic­a­tion for glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments to the com­pet­ent fed­er­al of­fice (Art. 60 para. 1).

² The ap­plic­a­tion must in­clude in­form­a­tion on:

a.

the pro­gramme goals to be achieved and in the case of com­pens­at­ory pay­ments for meas­ures in ag­ri­cul­ture in­form­a­tion on the goals to be achieved in the can­ton as a whole;

b.

the meas­ures prob­ably re­quired to achieve the goals and how they are to be im­ple­men­ted;

c.

the ef­fect­ive­ness of the meas­ures.

¹ The fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for con­clud­ing the pro­gramme agree­ment:

a.¹⁰⁵

the FOEN for com­pens­at­ory pay­ments to waste wa­ter treat­ment plants and for the plan­ning and con­duct of meas­ures to re­hab­il­it­ate wa­ters;

b.

the FO­AG for com­pens­at­ory pay­ments for meas­ures in ag­ri­cul­ture.

² The pro­gramme agree­ment shall be con­cluded for a spe­cif­ic ter­rit­ory. The sub­ject mat­ter of the pro­gramme agree­ment shall in par­tic­u­lar be:

a.

the stra­tegic pro­gramme goals that must be jointly achieved;

b.

the ob­lig­a­tions of the Can­ton;

c.

the fed­er­al sub­sidy to be provided;

d.

con­trolling.

³ The dur­a­tion of the pro­gramme agree­ment amounts in the case of com­pens­at­ory pay­ments to:

a.

meas­ures in ag­ri­cul­ture: nor­mally 6 years;

b.

oth­er meas­ures: 4 years.¹⁰⁶

⁴ The com­pet­ent Fed­er­al Of­fice shall is­sue guidelines on the pro­ced­ure in the case of pro­gramme agree­ments and on the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments on the sub­ject mat­ter of the pro­gramme agree­ment.

Glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments are paid out in in­stal­ments.

¹ The can­ton shall re­port an­nu­ally to the com­pet­ent Fed­er­al Of­fice on the use of the glob­al com­pens­at­ory pay­ments.

² The com­pet­ent Fed­er­al Of­fice shall veri­fy by ran­dom sample:

a.

the im­ple­ment­a­tion of in­di­vidu­al meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with the pro­gramme goals;

b.

the use of the sub­sidies paid out.

¹ The com­pet­ent Fed­er­al Of­fice shall with­hold all or part of the in­stal­ment pay­ments dur­ing the pro­gramme if the can­ton:

a.

fails to ful­fil its re­port­ing duty (Art. 61a para. 1);

b.

fails to meet its ob­lig­a­tions to a sub­stan­tial ex­tent through its own fault.

² If on con­clu­sion of the pro­gramme it emerges that the can­ton has failed to meet its ob­lig­a­tions, the com­pet­ent Fed­er­al Of­fice shall re­quire the can­ton to rec­ti­fy the situ­ation; it shall set the Can­ton an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line for do­ing so.

³ If in­stall­a­tions or equip­ment for which com­pens­at­ory pay­ments have been made are used for a pur­pose oth­er than that in­ten­ded, the com­pet­ent Fed­er­al Of­fice may re­quire the can­ton to stop or rem­edy the mis­use with­in a reas­on­able peri­od.

⁴ If the de­fects are not rec­ti­fied or if the mis­use does not stop or is not remedied, the pay­ments may be re­claimed in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 28 and 29 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 1990¹⁰⁷.

¹ The ap­plic­a­tion for fin­an­cial as­sist­ance or com­pens­at­ory pay­ments in spe­cif­ic cases is sub­mit­ted to the FOEN.

² It shall is­sue guidelines on the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments to be in­cluded in the ap­plic­a­tion.

¹ The FOEN shall spe­cify the sub­sidies in a rul­ing or enter in­to an agree­ment with the re­cip­i­ent of the sub­sidies for this pur­pose.

² It shall pay out the sub­sidies ac­cord­ing to how the pro­ject is pro­gress­ing.

¹ If the re­cip­i­ent of a prom­ised com­pens­at­ory pay­ment or fin­an­cial as­sist­ance des­pite be­ing warned fails to carry out a meas­ure not or does so in­ad­equately, the com­pens­at­ory pay­ment or fin­an­cial as­sist­ance shall not be paid out or shall be re­duced.

² If com­pens­at­ory pay­ments or fin­an­cial as­sist­ance have been paid out and the re­cip­i­ent des­pite be­ing warned fails to carry out a meas­ure not or does so in­ad­equately, the pay­ments may be re­claimed in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 28 and 29 of the Sub­sidies Act¹⁰⁹.

³ If in­stall­a­tions or equip­ment for which com­pens­at­ory pay­ments or fin­an­cial as­sist­ance have been paid out are used for a pur­pose oth­er than that in­ten­ded, the FOEN may re­quire the can­ton to stop or rem­edy the mis­use with­in a reas­on­able peri­od.

⁴ If the mis­use is not stopped or remedied, the pay­ments may be re­claimed in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 29 of the Sub­sidies Act.

Re­port­ing and con­trols in re­la­tion to com­pens­at­ory pay­ments and fin­an­cial as­sist­ance in spe­cif­ic cases are gov­erned by ana­logy by Art­icle 61a.

This Or­din­ance comes in­to force on 1 Janu­ary 1999.