Remission of the Allocation of Costs for Remediation of Contaminated Sites to the Lower Instance

Facts

The municipality of Glarus Nord filed a complaint against the decision of the Administrative Court of the Canton of Glarus, which imposed on it a share of 4/11 of the costs for the remediation of the former "Dreieckswäldli" landfill. The landfill was used as a gravel pit in the 1950s and subsequently used as a municipal waste landfill for the municipality of Bilten between 1967 and 1973.

The Federal Court set aside the decision of the lower instance and remanded the case for a new assessment of the question of whether the site was already in need of remediation in its initial state, i.e., independently of the "Linth 2000" project. Only if this was the case could the municipality of Glarus Nord be obliged to bear the costs pursuant to Art. 32d para. 1 of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA).

The Federal Court found that costs for measures on a contaminated but not remediation-requiring site, which only become necessary due to a construction project, are not remediation costs within the meaning of Art. 32d EPA. Rather, these are cases of application of Art. 3 lit. a of the Ordinance on Contaminated Sites, according to which the builder has the choice to carry out or modify the project in order to avoid the need for remediation.

Considerations

The Federal Court concluded that the Administrative Court should have clarified the question of the need for…