Van De Walle, RIP?
SOURCE: CIWM, JANUARY 2008
In the hugely significant “Van de Walle” case (Sept ’04) the European Court decided that contaminated soils were “waste” even BEFORE they were excavated. Thus, land which included contaminated soils (which needn’t even be bad enough to qualify officially as “contaminated land”) might be regarded as some form of unlicensed and illegal landfill, with various potential liabilities (including criminal ones) attaching to the landowner.
One question hotly debated in the context of the new Waste Framework Directive (WFD), due to be finalised in early 2008, has been whether this landmark ruling would survive or be ‘repealed’. As of late November, the latter now looks more likely.
When the Commission first published the new WFD in draft they proposed excluding unexcavated contaminated soil from the waste definition. But the European Parliament then deleted that provision. The European Council has recently reinstated it in what is now the adopted “common position” of the various European environment ministers. It remains to be seen whether the Parliament takes issue in coming weeks, when the WFD text returns there for further debates and voting in both committee and plenary.
However, it’s clear what the governments want, and they tend to get their own way in the end. If they do, it will be greeted with enthusiasm by regulators and landowners, neither of which had any appetite for the regulatory headaches associated with enforcing ‘Van de Walle’.
AUTHOR: VINCENT BROWN
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