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

¹ Those re­spons­ible for hy­dro­power plants must pre­vent or elim­in­ate by means of civil en­gin­eer­ing meas­ures short-term ar­ti­fi­cial changes in the wa­ter flow on a body of wa­ter (hy­dropeak­ing) that cause ser­i­ous harm to the in­di­gen­ous flora and fauna as well as their hab­it­ats. At the re­quest of the per­son re­spons­ible for a hy­dro­power plant, the au­thor­ity may or­der op­er­a­tion­al in­stead of civil en­gin­eer­ing meas­ures.

² The meas­ures are de­term­ined by:

a.

the de­gree of harm caused to the body of wa­ter;

b.

the eco­lo­gic­al po­ten­tial of the body of wa­ter;

c.

the pro­por­tion­al­ity of the cost;

d.

the in­terests of flood pro­tec­tion;

e.

the en­ergy policy goals re­lat­ing to the pro­mo­tion of re­new­able en­ergy sources.

³ With­in the catch­ment area of the body of wa­ter con­cerned, the meas­ures must be co­ordin­ated with each oth­er after hear­ing the per­sons re­spons­ible for the hy­dro­power plants con­cerned.

⁴ Re­ten­tion basins con­struc­ted in ap­plic­a­tion of para­graph 1 may be used for pumped stor­age without modi­fic­a­tion of the li­cence.