Management of Contaminated Sites and Land in Central and Eastern Europe

The Czech Republic

Country Characterisation

Background

The independent Czech Republic was founded in January 1993, when the former Czechoslovakia was split in two parts - the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

As a consequence of industrial and agricultural activities the geological environment and groundwater are contaminated at a number of locations. Significant contamination has been caused particularly by the chemical, petrochemical, metallurgical industries as well as by coke producing and brown coal and uranium mining and milling industries. Contamination of smaller extent due to improper handling of petroleum products and deposition of waste are evident at numerous enterprises.

The strategy for tackling environmental burdens from the past is based on the principles of the environmental policy. One of the basic principles consists in finding a socially acceptable level of environmental and health risk. This approach is based on the fact that the attaining of "zero risk" (e.g. absolute elimination of the contamination) is not always necessary from the standpoint of the environment and is usually associated with disproportionate costs. The actual degree of risk following from an environmental burden can be determined only on the basis of detailed analysis. A second important principle underlying the entire process is evaluating and remediation of burdens in relation to the expected use of the territory (as clean as reasonable for use).

It is noted, that groundwater is the main source for drinking water. Landfilling is the most common manner of waste disposal.

Contamination is a stage of nature when different parts of the environment (soil, groundwater, geological environment etc.) contain the pollution of an anthropogenic origin as chemicals strange to the given environment with their composition, concentration or volume.

Contamination is defined by different legal regulations and decrees both for contaminated sites and land. Generally speaking, contaminated sites are localities where the content of pollutants exceeds the regulatory limits given by the law or similar legal tools.

The new Czech Constitution was established on 16 December 1992. The Act on the Environment (Act No. 17/1992) was adopted from the Federal law, as it was done for many other legal provisions. A new environmental policy was adopted in August 1995.

In the Czech Republic there is no independent law dealing with contaminated sites. At present, contaminated sites are covered primarily by the following legal documents:

	Act No. 138/1973 Coll.: The Water Management Act.
	Act No. 125/1997 Coll.: The Waste Management Act (replacing the former federal Waste Act No. 238/1991 Coll.).
	Act No. 92/1992 Coll.: The Privatisation Act.
	A New Water Quality Decree of 1992.
	A New Environment Policy of 1995.

Protection of agricultural land fund (ALF) is provided by the Act No. 334/1992 Coll., and by the Decree of the Ministry of the Environment No. 13/1994 Coll.

The privatisation of public properties initiated the requirement to conduct environmental audits (Eco-Audits) at the properties of interest. This requirement is laid down in the Privatisation Act of 1992. The act includes several Decrees specifying the systematic approach of Eco-Audits, liability and remediation criteria.

As this situation is not completely satisfactory, the Ministry of the Environment is preparing an independent law on soil protection.

Aiming at the implementation of the requirement for environmental audits for privatised companies given in Act No. 92/1991 S.B., a joint methodical decree has been issued by the Ministry for the Administration of National Property and Its Privatisation and the Ministry of the Environment. The Decree (No. 393/94) defines the Czech ABC values for soil, soil air, and groundwater corresponding to background values, intervention values and urgent intervention values. The decree has two parts:

	Requirements on ecological audit focused on assessment of contamination (Eco-Audits).
	Standards re. pollution of soil and groundwater (guideline limit values for soil, soil gas, and groundwater).

The highest environmental authority in the Czech Republic is the Ministry of Environment. It is responsible for identification, assessment and clean-up of contaminated sites. Especially, the Ministry is responsible for the federal environmental policy, legislative tools and guidelines for the entire process.

The Regional Departments of the Ministry have an authority and responsibility for the administrative tasks related to the environment of their regions.

The Section of Technical Protection of the Environment and its subordinated Divisions i.e. the Environmental Damage Division, the Division of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and The Division of Waste Management are dealing with the management of technical protection of the environment, designing and supervising the remediation programmes and control the clean-up activities at the contaminated sites.

The Ministry of Defence controls the clean-up activities at military sites.

The Czech Inspection of the Environment (CIZP), in total 42 offices, enforces the environmental laws.

An Environmental Damage Assessment Committee co-ordinates site investigations at former Soviet military sites and consists of representatives from:

	The Ministry of the Environment.
	The Ministry of Finance.
	The Ministry of Agriculture.
	The Ministry of Industry and Trade.
	The Ministry of Defence.
	Experts from relevant engineering companies.

The National Property Fund is responsible for:

	Privatisation.
	Together with the Regional Authorities environmental audits are carried out and the needs for clean-up measures are assessed. The tendering of companies dealing with the remediation projects is carried out.

Up to now, there is no complex inventory for all contaminated sites. However, the Ministry of Defence registers contaminated sites of the Czech Army. Registration of waste dumps and landfills has been started by one of the District Offices in 1995 by use of questionnaires. Registration of contaminated sites including waste dumps and landfills has been organised by the Ministry of Environment as a research project. Ten districts have been selected and involved in the first phase of this project.

The National Property Fund (NFP) has its own registration of those contaminated sites, where remediation is financed by NFP and covering sites that were privatised according to Act No. 92/1991.

The GEOFOND Czech Republic is responsible for the information system covering the national parks, nature protected areas, old mining sites, inventory of minerals and their evaluation regarding reserves and use, protected areas of mineral resources, etc.

Characterisation of Soil and Groundwater Contamination

Sources of Soil and Groundwater Contamination

The following types of contaminated sites can be distinguished:

	Sites where contaminant concentrations exceed the Dutch C limits or the Czech drinking water standards.
	Former Soviet Army bases left after the departure of the army in 1991.
	Contaminated sites and areas affected by mining and milling of minerals (North Bohemian brown coal basins, North Moravian pit coal basin, areas affected by uranium mining and milling, waste dumps, tailing impoundments, etc.)
	Other contaminated sites when contaminant concentrations in soil, rocks, groundwater, waste, soil gas and buildings pose a risk as assessed by the Czech Inspection of the Environment.

Experiences show that the following substances are considered to be most important:

Petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons, PCBs, pesticides, heavy metals, radionuclides and other toxic substances.

Number of Registered Contaminated Sites / Contaminated Land Areas

No data available

Experiences show that the most prevailing problem is insufficient quality of environmental audits and risk analysis, i.e. the provision of proper data for qualified decision making on remedial measures. Aiming to eliminate these inadequacies, the Ministry of the Environment has developed the following guidelines so far:

	Environmental audit. The guideline provides detailed requirements on the content and form of the audit including guidelines for investigation methods and methods for evaluation of results. The audits have two stages. In stage I, data are collected by studies of available information e.g. from the enterprise in question, the federal authorities, archives, and scientific institutions. Stage II focuses on obtaining lacking data. Stage II includes investigation e.g. of contaminated soil and groundwater. Obtained data are used for completion of risk analysis.
	Risk analysis of contaminated land. The concept for risk analysis was firstly incorporated in the Government Decree No. 393/94, however, without specification of detailed requirements. The purpose of the guideline is to establish requirements on the content and form of completion of risk analysis. The guideline has two basic principles. By the first principle, the assessment is made in accordance with the actual or expected use of the land (suitable for use). By the second principle, the assessment is made in relation to multifunctional use of the land. The guideline establishes a procedure for risk assessment carried out in four following main steps (identification of hazards, assessment of exposure, establishing dose-response relationships, and risk characterisation). For each of the steps, the essential volume of data and requirements on data quality is prescribed.
	Criteria for decontamination of contaminated soil and ground water. The purpose of the guideline is both to define the means of the criteria application and the delimitation of the criteria considering increasing scientific knowledge and specific natural conditions. The following criteria are defined:

	A: Correspond approximately to the natural contents of the substance in question in natural soil.
	B: The contamination can have a negative impact on the health of humans and the environment. Criteria B levels are given as intervention levels.
	C: Correspond to urgent intervention levels. Further investigation and risk analysis should be performed as serious risk for the health of humans and the environment exists.

Supervision.

Furthermore, elaboration of the following guidelines has begun:

	Assessment stage. Guideline dealing with cost-benefit analysis, feasibility studies, sampling, and geophysical surveys.
	Clean-up stage. Guideline dealing with planing and implementation of clean-up activities, up-dated risk analysis, and monitoring.

Handling and Treatment of Excavated Contaminated Soil

Controlled disposal of contaminated soil in landfills has been used. Furthermore, several on-site or ex-situ treatment methods have been used (see below).

Measures Used by Remediation of Soil and Groundwater Contamination

It is expected that by the year 2000 remediation will be accomplished at most of the 60 contaminated Soviet Army bases. The clean-up of the largest of these – Mladá-Milovice and Ralsko Hradčany – is expected to last until 2006 – 2008.

The eight largest contaminated Czech military sites being returned to civilian use are expected to be remediated by 2000 – 2005. Five other large contaminated Czech military sites that will still be used by the army are also expected to be remediated by 2000 – 2005.

Experience has been gained by use of numerous remedial technologies, e.g.:

	On-site or ex-site treatment by bioreclamation of soil contaminated with hydrocarbons.
	On-site or ex-site treatment by soil washing of soil contaminated with heavy metals.
	On-site or ex-site treatment by incineration of soil contaminated with hydrocarbons.
	On-site or ex-site venting of soil contaminated with hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbons.
	On-site or ex-site stabilisation/solidification of soil contaminated with hydrocarbons.
	In-situ soil vapour extraction for soil contaminated with hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbons.
	In-situ encapsulation of soil contaminated with various contaminants.
	Pump and treat methods for groundwater contaminated with various contaminants.
	In-situ airsparging of groundwater contaminated with hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbons.
	Auxiliary in-situ methods: Air and hydraulic fracturing, will blasting, soil hearing, and surfactant flushing.

The most frequently applied method for soil remediation is excavation of soil, and soil treatment on the site. The most frequently applied methods for groundwater remediation are groundwater extraction and VOC stripping in the case of VOC contamination, and oil separation in the case of hydrocarbon contamination.

Factors influencing the choice of remedial methods include hydrogeological and physical soil properties, chemical/physical properties of contaminants, target concentrations for the clean-up, amount of contaminated soil, buildings and roads etc. at the contaminated site, remedial time, and costs.

The most cost-effective and reliable method for cleaning of soil contaminated with hydrocarbons is estimated to be on-site or ex-site bioreclamation. For sites contaminated with both hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbons, the most effective method is estimated to by soil vapour extraction. Pump and treat methods are reliable and versatile, but their cost-effectiveness decreases with time due to the decrease of contaminants concentrations. On-site or ex-site incineration of contaminated soil is expensive, and until now has only been used for very harmful substances.

The Ministry of Environment provides grants for topics of environmental assessment and remediation methods for research, development and demonstration projects.

Investigation and Remediation Activities

The Government Decrees No. 455/92 Coll., No. 123/93 Coll., No. 393/94 Coll. and No.810/97 Coll. give a systematic approach to deal with the responsibility and financing of assessment and clean-up of old cases of contamination.

There are three sources of public financing for environmental projects in the Czech Republic:

	the State Budget
	the State Environmental Fund (mainly based on pollution levies, e.g. for emissions and waste disposal)
	the National Property Fund (based on means from privatisation)
	clean-up activities at military sites of the former Czechoslovakian army are funded by the Ministry of Defence.

Environmental Burdens from the Past

The above-mentioned Law No. 92/192 Coll. on the conditions for the transfer of state property to private persons constitutes a significant step towards dealing with environmental burdens of the past. §6a of this act requires the preparation of an environmental audit as part of the privatisation project. If the environmental audit reveals the existence of serious burdens, the new owner of the privatised property, to which the burden is bound, may request the conclusion of an environmental agreement on funding for remediation. The Department of Environmental Damages of the Ministry of Environment (hereinafter DED) evaluates the substantiation of the request from the standpoint of whether the existence of the burden is adequately demonstrated and whether the burden constitutes a significant risk for human beings and the environment. Fulfilling of these criteria is a condition for issuing a favourable standpoint. A favourable standpoint of DED on the environmental audit is thus a necessary condition for NPF to recommend the concluding of an agreement to the Government. Along with the recommendation from NPF, the fulfilling of further conditions is also evaluated, such as the condition that the request for concluding of an agreement be submitted prior to making a decision on privatisation, and others. If the Government agrees with the concluding of an agreement, NPF or Land Fund (LF) concludes an environmental agreement with the new owner.

In order to ensure a uniform method for the evaluation of the obligations of enterprises from the standpoint of the environment, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry for Administration of National Property and Privatisation (MANPP) jointly issued a methodical instruction in 1992. Part of this instruction also consists in the standpoint of the Ministry of Environment on indices and standards for contaminated soil and underground water; this was amended in 1996 (Bulletin of ME, 1996, Volume 3).

In the agreement NPF pledges that it will pay the new owner purposefully expended costs for compliance with environmental obligations. For these purposes, environmental obligations are understood to consist in obligations following from an administrative decision imposed pursuant to the special regulations by the pertinent state administrative body. In this case, this consists in measures for remedy imposed pursuant to § 27 of Law No. 138/1973 Coll., on waters, in the wording of later regulations. Measures for remedy are imposed by the pertinent District Inspectorate of the Czech Environmental Inspection.

According to Law No. 92/192 Coll. concerning the privatisation of properties, some 5500 environmental audits and 200 risk analyses have been completed. As a result a significant burden in about 10% of privatised companies has been identified. Damages exceeding 500 mil. CZK (13 mill EUR) have been estimated in about 50 cases and damages of some 1 bill. CZK (26 mill EUR) in 10 cases. Up to now, a total of 270 agreements has been concluded on payments for environmental obligations between NPF or LF and new owners. At the present time about 70 decontamination projects are being carried out and a number of others are in preparation. The estimated costs for decontamination are about 35 bill. CZK. (920 mill EUR) In 1997, the expenditures of NPF for resolving environmental obligations corresponded to the sum of 3 bill. CZK (79 mill EUR), and of 2 bill. CZK (53 mill EUR) in 1998. This states one of the largest investments for improvement of the environment in the Czech Republic.

As a consequence of the chemical mining of uranium, a total of 260 mil. m³ of groundwater was contaminated. The total weight of waste with PCB content greater than 50 ppm is estimated at 15.000 t and the weight of used oil containing PCBs up to 50 ppm is estimated at about 50.000 t.

Uranium mining and milling

According to international statistics, the Czech Republic belongs to the areas with the strongest impact of extraction of minerals both at European as well as at worldwide scale. Due to extensive and in many places haphazard exploitation of minerals, high population density and extensive industrial activities in the last 50 years the ecological stability in many regions of the Czech Republic has been completely destructed.

One of the negative impacts of past and recent mining of minerals, among many other environmental issues, is uranium in-situ leaching in Stráž pod Ralskem. This mine is situated in Cretaceous sandstone, which build up a platform over northern Bohemia and represents a reservoir of drinking water for the Czech Republic.

The quantity of about 4 mil. tons of acids and other chemicals were injected into the leaching fields of Strá pod Ralskem deposit in the past 25 years, which affected a total of 188 mil. m³ of ground water in the area of 28 square km. Technological solutions from in-situ leaching fields dispersed horizontally and vertically not only within the cenomanian horizon, where the uranium minerals are present, but also along the not properly sealed extraction boreholes and tectonic lines up to the turonian aquifer of drinking water.

The following Government Decrees have been issued regarding this problem:

	No.366/1992 - Complex evaluation of chemical mining in North Bohemian area. A program for closing ISL and remediation of uranium mines.
	No.429/1993 - Concept of the recession program of underground mine Hamr and its "dry" conservation.
	No. 244/1995 - Realisation of restriction of uranium mining and milling in the Czech Republic.
	No. 170/1996 - issued to the Final Report about the remediation of the chemical extraction of uranium in Stráž pod Ralskem. It announced the end of chemical uranium extraction started from 1 April 1996 and the duty for the Ministries involved to submit each following year the progress report about the remediation program.

The financing of restoration program was covered by the state budget with support from international sources (EC, PHARE, Dutch Government, Danish Government, and IAEA). The analysed problem is unique all over Europe in its size and timescale.

The remediation programme, which has started in Straz pod Ralskem in 1992, represents an excellent example of the co-operation between the uranium producer DIAMO s.p. and state administrative bodies. This co-operation is even more valuable knowing that the problem of uranium ISL and the necessity of its remediation was recognised as a very serious environmental problem at European scale. The help of EU and IAEA experts during the preparation of the analysis of the problems was also highly appreciated.

Military sites

The presence of the Soviet Army on the territory of the Czech Republic led over the past 50 years to significant environmental damages. Payment for these cases comes entirely from the state budget without any contribution from the countries of the former Soviet Union. In 1991, the directing of this activity was entrusted to the Office for Dealing with the Consequences of the Presence of the Soviet Army on the Territory of CSFR and, following the division of Czechoslovakia, this jurisdiction passed to the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic. Thermal treatment is carried out within the sector of the Ministry of Defence.

A total of 73 locations, formerly occupied by the Soviet Army, have been delimited in the Czech Republic. In the first stage, the extent of damage at these locations was investigated. Only 12 locations were found to be free of damage. Further studies were concerned particularly with locations with danger of emergencies (danger to groundwater, spreading of contamination). A number of cases have been identified of serious contamination of the geological environment and underground waters, especially by petroleum hydrocarbons (primarily automotive fuels - gasoline, diesel fuel, aircraft kerosene), chlorinated hydrocarbons and ammunition. The most serious contamination was found in the areas around airports, oil management centres, unsecured dumps and dry cleaning plants.

So far, a total of almost 900 million CZK (24 mill EUR) has been devoted to liquidation of environmental damage and it is expected that completion of decontamination will require further 500 million CZK. At the present time, the annual budget for decontamination of locations formerly occupied by the Soviet Army corresponds to a sum of 90 - 100 mil. CZK (2,4 – 2,6 mill. EUR) p.a. This amount does not cover the full requirements for decontamination and permits only decontamination of the most high-risk burdens. At the present time, decontamination is proceeding at 14 locations.

One of the most highly affected areas is the Ralsko area in Northern Bohemia, especially the locality of the former Hradcany airport, where decontamination will continue to the year 2008. The special sensitivity of this area is a result of the fact that it lies in the North Bohemian Cretaceous Protected Natural Water Accumulation Area.

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