Samfundsøkonomisk vurdering af afværgeforanstaltninger på forurenede lokaliteter 

Summary

The point of departure for this report is the effort of the Danish counties to combat polluted localities. Since 1 July 1996, the counties have been responsible for clearing polluted localities. The aim of the report is to put forward a method which may be used by the counties when they prioritize their efforts against polluted localities that threaten the ground water or have polluted the ground water, and polluted localities that lead to a conflict over usage of area.

Today the need for clearing polluted localities by far exceeds the economic framework of the counties. Therefore, the main object of the method recommended in the report is that prioritizing the efforts of the counties against both ground water and usage of area conflicts should be done on the basis of both environmental and socio-economic considerations.

There have been no previous attempts to put forward a method for these specific priorities in Denmark. Therefore, the report will serve as a working report, which as a basis for the methods put forward also attempts to expound the considerations and problems which they involve. Thus it will be possible to use the report as a starting point for further work on the problems connected with polluted localities in Denmark.

In the beginning of the report, the object of the method is explained in detail. It is stressed that a method to be based on data and information corresponding to the level of registration inevitably will be subject to uncertainty, since it will require a number of estimates and calculations based on very scanty information. However, many of these estimates and calculations are already made in the counties today as a part of the present prioritizing of efforts. What the methods in this report primarily do is simply to systemize this information.

However, with this point of departure it is important to expound and discuss the limitations and conditions the methods are based on clearly and explicitly, which consequently forms a large part of the report.

The problems connected to the conflicts of ground water and use of area are very different. Therefore, these problems are treated separately in the report. Prior to this, a brief exposition of a number of different socio-economic methods of estimation is made, partly to illustrate their content and possible use for the specific purpose, partly as a basis for the recommendations of methods that follow later.

In the method for ground water threatening pollution, focus is on part areas. In this connection, a part area is just a term for a limited area where it is possible to assess the whole accessible, sustainable ground water resources. The object here is to ensure that no matter what effort is prioritized, the threat of pollution is eliminated in the whole part area.

Thus what is to be prioritized is different strategies, each of which contains a prioritized, temporal order for the efforts against all the polluted localities which threaten the ground water in the part area. Within each of these strategies it will be possible to prioritize every polluted locality by means of environmental assessments (i.a. assessment of risks, distribution of pollution and speed of dispersal), regard for the annual county budgets and possible local conditions. Since as mentioned all pollution threats are to be removed, it is not a question of completely prioritizing away some polluted localities, but just of determining the order in which they should be prioritized.

Apart from designating the optimal strategy for every part area, the method will include an assessment of within which part area(s) the most "environment for the money" can to be achieved.

It is methodically (and practically) much more difficult to choose an unequivocal goal for the criterium to be used in prioritizing with regard to pollution which causes conflicts over usage of area. Therefore, the background for the method recommended in the report is an exposition of different criteria which might be able to lay the foundations of a method for prioritizing polluted localities in the field of area usage.

On this basis it is concluded that the method criterium in the field of usage of area should be a minimizing of health risks, since this must be the main consideration when deciding the priority of different polluted localities with a conflict of area usage. Here it should be noted that polluted localities are viewed separately as opposed to ground water pollution, since the health threat - unlike a ground water threat - is not influenced by other types of pollution.

Today there is already a method (in "Projekt om jord og grundvand" from Miljøstyrelsen, nr. 19 1995) which groups pollution in the field of usage of area according to a range of health parameters. Therefore, the report takes this method as its starting point, in accordance with the recommended criterium of prioritizing. By choosing a group of highly prioritized pollutions, budgetary considerations may then be included by means of a socio-economic assessment, and where the most "environment for the money" is to be achieved may be illustrated.

Although the recommended method is different from the method for the ground water part, they share the possibility of prioritizing by means of a socio-economic assessment under the condition that environmental interests are considered. As indicated by the emphasis on the two fields in the report, consideration of the field of usage of area is complicated, for which reason the report, particularly in this field, serves to discuss the attendant problems so that it will be possible to take them as a starting point in later reports, when work is to be done on problems in the field of usage of area.

To illustrate the use of the methods in the report, a case is included for each, treating a number of pollutions in Vestsjællands Amt.

The report concludes by calling attention to the problems open for futher work in the field of both ground water and usage of area.

The contents of the report

In Chapter One the background and aim of the report is expounded, and a number of central limitations and conditions are discussed.

Chapter Two deals with socio-economic methods of assessment, and also discusses some conditions of estimation which are in opposition to the different methods of assessment.

Taking this as a starting point, Chapter Three argues in favour of how the socio-economic part of the method for ground water pollution and pollution threatening the ground water should be put together.

The method itself is put forward in Chapter Four, which begins by expounding the central content of the method. Then the procedure is outlined in steps which are then elaborated.

Chapter Five treats the conflicts over area usage. Before the method itself is put forward, a number of possible methods are outlined. In this connection, the problems attached to working out a method for pollution creating conflicts over area usage are discussed.

Chapter Six contains a case illustrating the use of the method put forward in Chapter Four for the ground water part of the report.

Chapter Seven also includes a case, giving an example of the use of the method in Chapter Five concerning conflicts over area usage.

Finally, in Chapter Eight the different issues of the report are brought together in a discussion of possible subjects for further work on both the field of ground water and area usag