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Groundwater Protection in Selected Countries

2. Point Sources

In Denmark, there are 6 distinct programmes regarding contaminated sites, each with its own administrative practice for listing and prioritising. The largest of these programmes falls under the Waste Deposit Act and the Danish Petroleum Industry’s Association for Remediation of Retail Sites (OM-programme). The other programmes stem from the Danish Defence Construction Service and the Danish National Railway Agency, the Lost Value Act, and the Environmental Protection Act. These categories are described briefly below:

Waste Deposit Act

The "Waste Deposit Act" (Miljøministeriet, 1990) has required the listing of contaminated sites since the program was initiated in 1983. The list is prepared by the regional authorities (Danish: amt) in co-operation with the local authorities (Danish: kommune). The programme is funded nationally, but voluntary remediations of listed sites are also carried out with private funds in cases where the site owner needs immediate clean-up. In order to be placed on this list, the following requirements are among those which must be met:

	the site must be contaminated in such a way that it can be hazardous and have a negative effect on people or the environment
	the contamination must have occurred prior to 1976 (for oil contamination, the date is 1972 while for landfills, operation of the landfill must have started before 1974 and abandoned by 1990)
	the regional authorities must document that the site is actually contamination by historical information (desk study) as well as information from collecting and analysing samples from the site (technical investigations) (Miljøministeriet, 1993)

Petroleum Industry (OM)

The OM-programme was initiated in 1992. OM’s activities are financed through the sale of petrol (currently 0,05 DKK pr. litre). The program lists, investigates and remediates former petrol stations.

Since the preparation of an environmental strategy in 1993, the Defence Construction Service has listed, investigated and remediated contaminated sites at military bases.

Railway Agency

The Railway Agency has since about 1992 listing, investigating and remediation of sites in connection with railways.

Lost Value Act

This programme was initiated in 1993 for home owners who unknowingly have purchased property with contamination which may cause the value of the property to fall. This programme requires that the homeowner finance the first 40,000 DKK of the remediaton while the remainder is paid for by public funds. If the remediation which is carried out is inadequate to cancel the listing of the site, the homeowners money is returned. If the annual budget for public funds are inadequate, the site is placed on a list for clean up the following year.

Environmental Protection

This act relates to sites where contamination has occurred after the mid-1970’s deadline given in the Waste Deposit Act.

2.1 Number of Sites

Listed sites

Information regarding the number of sites listed in Denmark as of 1997 is shown below:

The total number of sites listed under the Waste Deposit Act is 4048 (Miljøstyrelsen, 1998). Of these, 2440 are regarded as threats to the groundwater.

In 1997, OM had 5649 sites listed as potentially contaminated. Since no previous investigation has been carried out for the majority of these sites, the sites are not necessarily contaminated.

The Defence Construction Service has listed 230 sites, 78 of which have been delisted following technical investigations and 35 of which have been delisted following remediation. This leaves a total of 117 contaminated sites.

The Railway Agency has carried out technical investigations at 310 sites. A total of 139 sites were delisted following investigation and 23 are delisted following remediation. This leaves a total of 148 contaminated sites.

The Lost Value Act has no large number of sites listed since they are remediated as soon as possible after being reported.

New contaminations listed under the The Environmental Protection Act were reported for the first time in 1997. The number of sites is therefore not complete. Preliminary numbers, however, show that a total of 298 sites are listed, but not yet remediated.

The total number of all types of contaminated sites which eventually will be identified is estimated at 30,000 (Miljø- og Energiministeriet, 1999). Of these, it is estimated that 9,000 are a threat to groundwater.

Delisted sites

As of 1997, 692 sites were delisted according to the Waste Deposit Act in part or in total. An additional 437 were released for a specific land use, but not delisted.

The OM programme has delisted 829 sites. Since this programme does not differentiate between delisting a site that was found to be uncontaminated and delisting a contaminated site by way of remediation, this number is deceptively high.

The Defence Construction Service has delisted 35 contaminated sites and an additional 78 sites which were shown to be uncontaminated. The Railway Agency has delisted 23 sites. An additional 139 were delisted after being shown to be uncontaminated. The Property Value Act has caused a total of 77 sites to be remediated in 1996 and 1997, while the Environmental Protection Act has remediated 564 sites.

Figure 2.1 shows an overview of listed and delisted sites.

Figure 2.1
Listed and delisted sites in Denmark as of 1997. Note that sites under the OM-programme are not necessarily contaminated.

2.2 Time frame for clean-up

Point 6 in the government’s 10-point plan (Miljø- og Energiministeriet, 1994) states that all sites which threaten groundwater and which are located in areas with special drinking water interests must be remediated within a 10 year period. The Danish EPA interprets this time period as starting from 1997/98, when the areas of particular value for drinking water were mapped and designated.

2.3 Costs

The total cost of the various programmes regarding contaminated sites is shown for 1997 in the table below. This total does not include costs of the voluntary remediation or sites under the Environmental Protection Act.

According to the proposed soil law (Miljø- og Energiministeriet, 1998), the total cost of managing the contaminated site problem in the future will be 4,700 mill. DKK. This number does not including costs of activities carried out by the OM-programme.

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