The province of South Holland also wants the industry to minimize emissions of potentially very harmful substances. “Now we are only allowed to impose far-reaching restrictions on substances on a list of very harmful substances,” says deputy Frederik Zevenbergen (VVD), who is responsible for granting permits to the industry. “But to protect public health, we want to be able to go further.” The law should therefore be amended, says Zevenbergen in conversation with NRC.
The review of a permit for the Chemours factory in Dordrecht is the reason for the call. Zuid-Holland wants to oblige the company to limit the emissions of all PFAS compounds. It is not yet clear how harmful they are for all these compounds. PFAS as a group are on a list of ‘potentially very high concern’ of the RIVM. This list consists of some 350 substances that are ‘conceivably, but not yet proven’ to be very harmful. The list has been drawn up, among other things, to prevent companies from replacing hazardous substances with alternatives that later turn out to be harmful themselves (regrettable substitution).
In 2012, Chemours in Dordrecht replaced a harmful PFAS in the production process (PFOA) with another PFAS that later also proved to be harmful (GenX). The province wants to prevent a recurrence by limiting the emission of little-researched substances as a precaution. Deputy Zevenbergen: “Companies change a few atoms in a molecule and have a new substance, while we have to wait years to find out how harmful that substance is. That’s frustrating.”
Chemours objected to the tightened permit and was proved right by the last month court of The Hague. According to the court, the province must better demonstrate that the substances are harmful before it can tighten the permit. The province is in appeal gone, because scientific research into harmfulness and risks takes years, but the chemicals are now coming out of the chimney.
Chemours has reduced emissions of some harmful substances by 99 percent since 2013. The company has announced that it aims to reduce emissions of other PFAS by 80 percent by 1 January 2024.
Since 2018, RIVM has maintained a list of ‘substances of potential very high concern’. Twenty to thirty percent of the substances on this list eventually turn out to be so dangerous that they are classified as ‘very high concern’.
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South-Holland decided therefore in 2019 to treat all ‘potential substances of very high concern’ as strictly as ‘substances of very high concern’. This would mean that companies would be obliged to limit the emission of potentially hazardous substances to a minimum. This obligation already applies to substances that are known to be harmful. The province also wants companies to report every five years on what they have done to limit the emission of potentially hazardous substances. The province is currently updating permits dozens of companies.
Legally tenable?
With the recent ruling by the District Court of The Hague, the question is whether this provincial policy is legally tenable.
No other province has adopted the South Holland policy. In 2020, the province of North Holland did make an attempt to limit the emission of potentially very high concern substances at a transhipment company for kerosene and crude oil. The company appealed this decision, and was right of the judge.
“We are required to be strict, now we do that and we get the lid on our nose,” says deputy Zevenbergen. “We need support to take the next step.” Zevenbergen finds the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management so far “wait and see”.
A spokesperson said in a response that the ministry does not intend to amend the law, because licensing authorities already have the scope to limit the emission of potentially hazardous substances as a precaution. This year, however, the ministry launched a program to investigate how to deal with new, unknown substances.
As long as the law is not changed, it is important that RIVM receives more money to investigate the risks of unknown substances, says Deputy Zevenbergen. However, the ministry does not intend to allocate extra budget for this, says a spokesperson. Provinces can already ask RIVM to investigate specific substances. In addition, it is the responsibility of companies to conduct research into the harmfulness of substances they emit, if necessary, according to the spokesperson.