The Interprovincial Consultation (IPO), the umbrella organization of the provinces, is cracking down on the current nitrogen policy of the provinces in a very critical evaluation. According to an IPO nitrogen working group that conducted the evaluation, “an increase” in nitrogen precipitation “cannot be ruled out”. The review, which was published earlier in January but has so far gone unnoticed, says that policy needs to be adjusted.
In May 2019, the Council of State put an end to the hitherto applicable Dutch nitrogen policy. Nature was not sufficiently protected and biodiversity deteriorated. The verdict brought countless construction projects to a standstill.
To get these projects started, a complicated system has been set up in which nitrogen space is searched in all kinds of ways. NRC published last Friday about provinces that use the nitrogen space of closed farms, burned down department stores or factories that have been closed for years. This sometimes leads to more nitrogen precipitation on nature reserves that are already in very poor condition.
The IPO now concludes the same. The provincial club points out that one of the “main goals” of the nitrogen rules is precisely a decrease in nitrogen precipitation. According to the study, the current approach urgently needs to be revised. „The working group recommends investigating how the actual deposition increase [neerslag] can best be prevented.”
The IPO study has been published more than half a year after it was ready. The suggestion that the report was kept silent for a while because in the summer there was a lot of talk about the politically sensitive nitrogen file – plans to expropriate farmers leaked out – an IPO spokesperson rejects. “I don’t know about that.”
There are doubts as to whether the working methods of the provinces are allowed at all. Provinces believe that their way of working is legal based on existing decisions of the Council of State and the Emergency Nitrogen Act that came into effect at the beginning of 2020. But experts stated in NRC last week that this is not true.
Nitrogen puzzles, according to them, go against the European nature conservation law, which prescribes that nature reserves must never deteriorate. The brand new Minister for Nature and Nitrogen, Christianne van der Wal (VVD), acknowledged last Friday in response to the article in NRC that the current approach sometimes seeks “the edges”. This, she said, was not the intention. She did not say whether the system had to be overhauled.
Also read: Creative nitrogen puzzles: four remarkable ways governments create nitrogen space
The IPO also warns that governments had better prepare for new lawsuits in the nitrogen file. On that point, the IPO has already been proved right: in December 2021, the East Brabant court concluded that the Amercentrale, a power plant in Brabant, is not entitled to nitrogen rights from a part of the factory that has been out for years.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 1, 2022