The Politics of Contaminated Sites Management: Institutional Regime Change and Actors' Mode of Participation in the Environmental Management of the Bonfol Chemical Waste Landfill in Switzerland

174 Pages·2015·4.28 MB·English

by  Johann Dupuis

Johann Dupuis · Peter Knoepfel
The Politics of
Contaminated
Sites Management
Institutional Regime Change and
Actors Mode of Participation in the
’
Environmental Management of the
Bonfol Chemical Waste Landfi ll in
Switzerland
The Politics of Contaminated Sites Management

Johann Dupuis (cid:129) Peter Knoepfel

The Politics of Contaminated
Sites Management
Institutional Regime Change and Actors’
Mode of Participation in the Environmental
Management of the Bonfol Chemical Waste
Landfi ll in Switzerland
Johann Dupuis
Peter Knoepfel
Swiss Grad. School of Public Administration
University of Lausanne
Lausanne , Switzerland
Kind permission was given for use of parts of chapters published in 2013 by IDHEAP,
Lausanne, Switzerland from “Institutional Regimes, Policy Networks and Their Effects on
the Management of Contaminated Sites: The Case of Bonfol Industrial Landfi ll in
Switzerland” in chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 in this volume.
ISBN 978-3-319-11306-7 ISBN 978-3-319-11307-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-11307-4
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014949199
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Foreword
T he Bonfol chemical waste landfi ll, one of the biggest of its kind in Switzerland,
was in activity from 1961 to 1976. The formal procedure by the authorities demand-
ing the clean-up of the site started at the beginning of the year 2000, and the task
will be accomplished approximately in 2016 with costs close to 0.5 billion CHF. As
the clean-up is still going on, this book is the fi rst published using this particular
case of contamination. One may wonder why this interest in the Bonfol site rather
than other cases of success or failure in contaminated sites remediation processes in
Europe, and how the lessons from this book can be applied to environmental
management.
The authors of the present book put into context the “Bonfol affair”: one of the
fi rst attempts of implementing the Swiss policy on contaminated sites remediation.
During this confl ictual process, simultaneous measures by political authorities and
actions by NGOs fi nally resulted in a decision of the industry to entirely clean up
the site in a proper way, by application of the polluter-pays principle. With the
accomplishment of the remediation process described in this book and the fi nal
disposal of chemical waste, the historical cycle of the tremendous post–Second
World War development of the Swiss chemical industry and its harmful conse-
quences for the environment seems to be closing. However, in the Basel region, as
well as in France, Germany, in the USA, and in a few other areas in Switzerland,
older landfi lls produced by the chemical industry are still waiting to be fully remedi-
ated. In these cases, political pressure from public authorities and civil society is
lacking in order to convince the industry to do so.
This book shows that until the beginning of the 1980s, the development of
e nvironmental standards through legislation was in fact quite slow and hesitant in
Switzerland. For example, development of legislation on water protection by the
acts of 1955 and 1971 brought some progress, but did not succeed in improving
signifi cantly either water quality or practices in waste management and clean-up of
soil contamination. The situation only changed drastically with adoption of the
Environmental Protection Act of 1983, which introduced a coherent philosophy on
environmental impact assessment, waste management, protection of air and soil,
and fi nally evaluation and clean-up of contaminated sites. Furthermore, it is only
v
vi Foreword
since the enactment of the ordinance on remediation of contaminated sites (CSO) in
1998 by the federal government that the clean-up movement was initiated. These
policy developments paved the way for the current waste management practices and
allowed us to fi nally consider and resolve the problems linked to the industrial heri-
tage of the “Glorious Thirties.”
T he authors of this research analyze the historical development of the legal envi-
ronmental framework of Switzerland, of the perception of chemical waste landfi lls
as pollution sources, and their consequences on waste management, in particular
on waste disposal practices. With respect to the Bonfol case, the legal framework
was completed by 1998 and all institutional conditions for the clean-up were
already available at that date. However, the initiative by the government of the
Canton Jura and the NGOs to demand remediation of the site started a long power
struggle with the industry, and it fi nally took 10 years until the clean-up operations
really started.
For readers who are interested in the mechanisms that command complex envi-
ronmental projects that affect ecosystems and the daily life of populations in the
long term, and for those who are interested in the relationship between industry,
public authorities and civil society, this book is of particular interest. As a result
of their research the authors hence mention: “Drawing lessons from the evidences
gathered in this research, we conclude by debating the value of institutional fl ex-
ibility for dealing with environmental issues such as contaminated sites. We argue
that fl exibility can only conduct to sustainable environmental management if envi-
ronmental interests are suffi ciently well represented in open and deliberative deci-
sion arenas, and if public authorities fully assume the role of arbitrator.” And
furthermore: “The principal lesson that can be drawn from the case of the Bonfol
contaminated site is that in fl exible institutional contexts, and where the ecologi-
cal management of an area is largely driven by the private sector, counterforces
must be able to participate in the decision process, in order to ensure that a bal-
ance exists between the values, interests and resources that drive the decision-
making process.”
T he writer of this preface was engaged in the decision-making process on reme-
diation of the Bonfol chemical waste landfi ll as a coordinator of the scientifi c com-
mittee that supported the government of the Canton Jura from 2000 to 2005. On the
basis of my experience, I strongly support the analysis by the book’s authors: regu-
lations that fi x environmental standards and the relations between public institutions
and governments on one side and industry and other private actors on the other side
are the necessary basis for coherent environmental management. However, authori-
ties of public political entities such as cantons and even the Swiss confederation as
the central state do not always have either the fi nancial possibilities or the necessary
political power to fully apply the law. In these cases, under the current legislation,
the confl ict with NGOs and other representatives of civil society is predictable.
However, there should be mechanisms to integrate all the social forces in the
d ecision process, to come to optimal solutions and support the environmental sus-
tainability of the projects.
Foreword vii
In that sense, I am convinced that the book presented by Johann Dupuis and Peter
Knoepfel is a very interesting contribution that provides a sound basis to improve
the environmental decision-making processes in our society.
Institute F. A. Forel Walter Wildi
University of Geneva
Versoix, Switzerland

Acknowledgments
W e would like to deeply thank, Linda Gubler, Benjamin Grether, Suzanne Cox, and
Françoise Gisi for their help with this book.
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