Federal Act
on the Protection of Waters
(Waters Protection Act, WPA)

¹ In­so­far as re­quired for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of this Act, and provided private ac­quis­i­tion is not an op­tion, the can­tons shall or­der land con­sol­id­a­tion pro­ced­ures. The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may ac­quire the re­quired rights by means of the com­puls­ory pur­chase pro­ced­ure. They may del­eg­ate this power to third parties.

² The com­puls­ory pur­chase pro­ced­ure shall only be ap­plied if ef­forts to se­cure a private ac­quis­i­tion or for land con­sol­id­a­tion are un­suc­cess­ful.

³ The can­tons may de­clare the Fed­er­al Act of 20 June 1930⁷⁹ on Com­puls­ory Pur­chase to be ap­plic­able in their im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions. They shall spe­cify that the can­ton­al gov­ern­ment de­cide on ob­jec­tions that re­main in dis­pute.⁸⁰

⁴ For works that in­volve the ter­rit­ory of two or more can­tons, the fed­er­al law on com­puls­ory pur­chase ap­plies. The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions shall de­cide on com­puls­ory pur­chase mat­ters.

⁵ The sur­faces in the space provided for wa­ters that are ex­ploited shall wherever pos­sible re­main in the pos­ses­sion of the farm­ers. They are deemed to be areas re­served for pro­mot­ing biod­iversity.⁸¹