The environmental association Cero asked this Sunday that the Government “fulfill its promise” and publish legislation for the protection of soils, which has been in the drawer for nearly seven years.
“Approximately seven years ago today, the ProSolos legislation — pollution prevention and soil remediation — remains in the drawer, despite the fact that the result of the public consultation indicated widespread support for its publication,” Zero said, in a statement. press sent to the unit. Portuguese.
On the eve of World Soil Day, which is celebrated this Monday, this environmental association hopes that the Government “keeps its promise and publishes legislation for the protection of soils.”
In the note, Zero recalls that in March he received a guarantee from the former Secretary of State for the Environment, Inês Costa, that “the publication of this legislation was a priority of the previous government’s environmental policy, so this ‘dossier’ it will have been placed in the transition folder for the current government”.
The association has already questioned the current Minister of Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro, about the status of this matter, “but until today it has not received any response”, recalling that this year the Assembly of the Republic approved a recommendation to the Government to publish the ProSolos legislation.
According to the note, this legislation would include relevant issues such as the obligation to condition the sale of land where soil contamination risk activities were installed “on the presentation of a report with the state of contamination of said soil, by the owner, remaining thus responsible for eventual decontamination costs.”
“In this way, this legislation would reduce the occurrence of situations in which the new owners discover that the soil of the land they acquired is contaminated and they can no longer hold the previous owner responsible for its decontamination,” he clarified.
ProSolos also foresees the creation of a Soil Quality Atlas and the obligatory nature of an evaluation of soil contamination by the owners where environmental risk activities have been carried out.
“This measure would drastically reduce the occurrence of situations in which, given the impossibility of identifying those responsible for soil contamination, the State ends up assuming the necessary costs to solve these environmental liabilities,” Zero emphasized.
According to a press release, a study by the Portuguese Environment Agency, from 2017, concluded that the country “would earn about 25 million euros in six years, as a result of the publication of ProSolos, which would increase environmental earnings and na public health”.
Source: Observadora
