Contaminated areas are often related to industrial sites contaminated by inadequate management of chemicals and/or waste or from inadequate or non-existent treatment of waste water. Contamination has been caused by both public enterprises and private companies. In many cases, contamination is caused by substances, operations or waste disposal methods that are not in accordance with current environmental legislation.
Impact
Contamination can result in the dispersal of hazardous substances in soils, sediment, ground water and surface water. At some sites, the contamination may represent a risk to human health, cause irreversible environmental damage or make the land unsuitable for some types of land use.
Remediation
The Swedish Environmental Code, which was established in 1999, regulates the responsibilities concerning contaminated land. Chapter 10 of the Swedish Environmental Code deals with contaminated sites. There it is stated that the operator, who is presently operating or previously operated a site which is polluted, is liable for investigation and remediation. A property owner may also be responsible. The above is based on what is often called the "Polluter Pays Principle".
The Environmental Code replaced or consolidated 15 individual laws concerning environment, which existed previously. The earliest environmental law concerning contaminated land specifically was established in 1969. This date is important, because if a polluting activity ceased before 1969, the polluter cannot be held liable.
Where a responsible polluter for some reason cannot be identified or held responsible, public funding may be used. This funding is administered by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
Stakeholders
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has been working with the remediation of contaminated sites for several decades together with County Administrative Boards and local municipalities. There are many other organizations contributing in the work on remediation of contaminated areas – including governmental authorities as Geological Survey of Sweden, Swedish Geotechnical Institute and Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, private operators, and higher education institutes. "Nätverket Renare mark" (the "Clean Soil Network") and Swedish Geotechnical Society are non-profit networks of organizations including consultants, researchers, government authorities, and remedial contractors who coordinate the exchange of information and experiences in meetings, conferences and courses.
Soil state contaminated site inventory
In order to identify contaminated areas, County Administrative Boards in Sweden have carried out an inventory of sites which previously had or currently have operations that may cause contamination of soil, sediment or groundwater. It is usually necessary to assess the contamination and the need for remediation of these areas in possible situations where environmentally harmful operations are discontinued, when land use in the area changes, when an area believed to be contaminated is subject to a corporate or property transaction, or when elevated concentrations of pollutants or adverse effects are observed in the environment.
The County Administrative Boards have, with the support of the Swedish EPA, created a database to manage area-specific soil contamination data. This database contains data on areas which may be contaminated, declared contaminated, remediated and declared clean. There are approximately 85 000 potentially contaminated sites in Sweden, 26 000 of these are classified according to potential risk. About 1 100 sites are classified in category 1, "Very high risk to health and the environment and 7 700 are classified in category 2 "High risk".