Province of Noord-Holland: reporting soil pollution or soil degradation
You need to report pollution or impairment of the soil as soon as possible after you notice it. You report to the provincial authorities if:
- you have an environmental permit issued by the provincial authorities, and
- it concerns pollution or impairment of the soil in:a water extraction area
- a groundwater protection area, or
- a Natura 2000 nature conservation area In all other cases, you can report it to the municipality.
Are you responsible for polluting or impairing the soil? In that case, you must reverse the pollution or impairment to the soil. For this, you must submit an action plan to the provincial authorities.
You must report the pollution or impairment of the soil to the provincial authorities as soon as possible after you become aware of it. If the pollution is caused by you, you must provide the provincial authorities with the following information as well:
- the cause of the pollution and an explanation of how this could have happened
- which substances have ended up in the soil or in what other way the soil has been impaired
- other data necessary to estimate the adverse effects to the environment
- what measures you plan to take to clean up the soil or to reduce the damage to a minimum The measures you can and must take when cleaning up the soil depend on the type of pollution and the scope thereof.
If you have applied for a permit, in most cases the regular process applies. In this case you will receive the decision within 5 weeks from the date we received your application.
Questions about this topic?
Contact the Province of Noord-Holland