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

¹ Any per­son who op­er­ates or in­tends to op­er­ate in­stall­a­tions which, in ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, could ser­i­ously dam­age people or their nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment must take the meas­ures re­quired to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion and the en­vir­on­ment.²⁴ In par­tic­u­lar, suit­able sites must be chosen, the re­quired safety dis­tances must be ob­served, tech­nic­al safety meas­ures must be taken and the mon­it­or­ing of the in­stall­a­tion and or­gan­isa­tion of the alarm sys­tem must be en­sured.

² The can­tons co­ordin­ate the ser­vices re­spons­ible for dis­aster pre­ven­tion and des­ig­nate a re­port­ing agency.

³ The op­er­at­or of the in­stall­a­tion must im­me­di­ately re­port any ex­traordin­ary event to the re­port­ing agency.²⁵

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may pro­hib­it by or­din­ance cer­tain pro­duc­tion meth­ods and the keep­ing of cer­tain stocks if there is no oth­er way of pro­tect­ing the pop­u­la­tion and the nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment ad­equately.