From now on, provinces and municipalities must be able to enforce to take soil samples at companies if the land may be contaminated with PFAS. This is what MPs of various parties and members of the Provincial States think. They want the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management to close this ‘gap in the law’. About 1200 places in Brabant are contaminated with the toxic PFAS.
Research by Omroep Brabant, the NOS and other regional broadcasters show that dozens of companies do not give permission for taking soil samples at the suspect PFAS locations. Provinces say they can’t force that either.
Together with municipalities, provinces are working on a large -scale inventory to gain insight into where PFAS is in the ground. Thousands of suspicious locations throughout the Netherlands have already emerged, such as landfill places, locations where there is or has been paint, textile or chemical industry and fire station has been practiced with PFAS-containing extinguishing foam.
‘Fast action’
In risky places, for example where the groundwater is connected to drinking water sources, provinces and municipalities want to take soil samples, but that does not always work because many companies refuse this.
MPs from GroenLinks-PvdA, NSC, D66 and the Party for the Animals find this unacceptable. RIVM recently found that almost all Dutch people have too many PFAS in their bodies.
In a response, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management says ‘, where necessary, to look at additional legal possibilities, should it appear that there is no effective action in this’.
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According to the MPs, it is already clear that the ministry must take quickly action. “It cannot be that a refusal of companies to investigate possible PFAS sources can lead to further contamination in, for example, water,” says GroenLinks-PvdA MP Geert Gabriels. “The public interest of health for humans and animals is paramount. This gap in the regulations must be closed quickly.”
“The ministry must close that Maas in the law,” says Natascha Wingelaar of NSC. “Public health and the environment are paramount here. It is important to detect PFAS sources.”
‘No escapes’
According to former professor of environmental law at the University of Groningen Gerrit van der Veen, this problem also played in the past with soil pollution by companies. “That is why a specific arrangement was made at that time that certain companies had to do soil research themselves.”
In the meantime, that regulation no longer applies. “The law does not assume unlimited research into contaminants,” says Van der Veen, who is seen by colleagues as authority in this area.
“The government may come and do research if the company has caused the contamination itself. In other cases, you will have to have the friendliness of the company itself.”
“It’s just ridiculous,” responds SP State member of the province of Gelderland Carla Claassen. “That you can refuse this as a terrain owner or company. We are talking about the environment and about public health here.”
Also according to Charlotte de Roo, member of the States of GroenLinks in Gelderland, this is not possible. “There should be no escape routes. You just have to be able to come in if you have the suspicion that PFAS is in the ground there.”