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

¹ The per­sons re­spons­ible for in­stall­a­tions for hand­ling li­quids which may pol­lute wa­ter must en­sure that the struc­tures and equip­ment re­quired for the pro­tec­tion of the wa­ters are provided, reg­u­larly in­spec­ted and prop­erly op­er­ated and main­tained. Stor­age in­stall­a­tions that re­quire a per­mit (Art. 19 para. 2) must be in­spec­ted at least every ten years; de­pend­ing on the risk of pol­lu­tion to the wa­ters, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late in­spec­tion in­ter­vals for oth­er in­stall­a­tions.

² Losses of li­quid must be pre­ven­ted at stor­age in­stall­a­tions and tran­ship­ment areas and leaks of li­quid shall be eas­ily de­tec­ted and re­tained.

³ In­stall­a­tions with li­quids which may pol­lute wa­ter may only be con­struc­ted, mod­i­fied, in­spec­ted, filled, main­tained, emp­tied and de­com­mis­sioned by per­sons who due to their train­ing, equip­ment and ex­per­i­ence guar­an­tee com­pli­ance with the state of the art.

⁴ Any per­son who man­u­fac­tures parts for in­stall­a­tions must test wheth­er these parts cor­res­pond to the state of the art and doc­u­ment the res­ults of the test.

⁵ If in­stall­a­tions with li­quids which may pol­lute wa­ter are con­struc­ted, mod­i­fied or de­com­mis­sioned, the per­sons re­spons­ible must re­port this to the can­ton in ac­cord­ance with can­ton­al reg­u­la­tions.

⁶ If the per­son re­spons­ible for an in­stall­a­tion with li­quids which may pol­lute wa­ter or any per­son en­trus­ted with the op­er­a­tion or main­ten­ance there­of de­tects a leak, they shall re­port this im­me­di­ately to the wa­ters pro­tec­tion in­spect­or­ate. They shall, on their own ini­ti­at­ive, take all reas­on­able meas­ures to pre­vent the re­lated pol­lu­tion of wa­ters.

⁷ Para­graphs 2–5 do not ap­ply to in­stall­a­tions that do not pose a risk of pol­lu­tion to wa­ters or only do so to a neg­li­gible ex­tent