Waters Protection Ordinance
(WPO)

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.