Federal Act
on the Protection of the Environment
(Environmental Protection Act, EPA)

¹ The per­son re­spons­ible bears the costs of the meas­ures re­quired to in­vest­ig­ate, mon­it­or and re­medi­ate pol­luted sites.

² If two or more per­sons are re­spons­ible, they bear the costs ac­cord­ing to their shares of the re­spons­ib­il­ity. The first to bear the costs is the per­son who caused the meas­ures to be needed through his con­duct. Any per­son who is re­spons­ible simply as the pro­pri­et­or of the site does not bear any costs if, by ex­er­cising the re­quired care, he could not have had any know­ledge of the pol­lu­tion.

³ The pub­lic au­thor­ity con­cerned bears the share of the costs of any per­son re­spons­ible who can­not be iden­ti­fied or is un­able to pay.

⁴ The au­thor­ity is­sues a rul­ing on the al­loc­a­tion of costs if any per­son re­spons­ible so re­quests or if the au­thor­ity is car­ry­ing out the meas­ures it­self.

⁵ If an in­vest­ig­a­tion of a site entered in the re­gister (Art. 32c para. 2) or for which an entry is planned re­veals that the site is not pol­luted, the pub­lic au­thor­ity con­cerned bears the costs of the in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ures re­quired.