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POLLUTION

Swiss polluted sites Zug-sized, says report

A new survey has found 38,000 sites in Switzerland that are polluted, according to the federal environment office.

Swiss polluted sites Zug-sized, says report
Environment office map shows total size of polluted sites (area in orange)

If that sounds like a lot, officials who released the numbers in a report on Thursday say it’s actually less than the 50,000 sites previously estimated.

The surface area of the contaminated sites is close to 225 square kilometres, or about the size of the canton of Zug.

And 10 percent of the contaminated sites are in areas used by the Swiss Army for target practice.

The findings are based on data gathered and analyzed from federal and cantonal surveys for the first time.

The survey shows that half of the polluted sites are on industrial land and 40 percent from waste discharges in addition to the 10 percent attributable to shooting ranges.

Around one percent of polluted sites are the result of accidents, the report says.

Close to 60 percent of polluted sites in Switzerland are close to usable underground water sources, according to the report.

On the plus side, the government says that two-thirds of polluted sites do not require any treatment, with around half of them posing no environmental problems.

But for 10,000 sites, investigations into their impact have yet to be done.

Studies done so far have put five percent of the sites under surveillance, while cleanup operations have been undertaken in about three percent of cases.

By the time more studies are completed over the next few years, the environment office expects cleanups will be needed at 3,000 sites on top of the 700 that have already received remediation work.

The current action to address polluted sites was kick-started by regulations dating back to the late 1990s.

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POLLUTION

Greenpeace sounds alarm over Spain’s ‘poisonous mega farms’

The “uncontrolled” growth of industrial farming of livestock and poultry in Spain is causing water pollution from nitrates to soar, Greenpeace warned in a new report on Thursday.

Greenpeace sounds alarm over Spain's 'poisonous mega farms'
Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of Murcia Mar Menor saltwater lagoon. Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

The number of farm animals raised in Spain has jumped by more than a third since 2015 to around 560 million in 2020, it said in the report entitled “Mega farms, poison for rural Spain”.

This “excessive and uncontrolled expansion of industrial animal farming” has had a “serious impact on water pollution from nitrates”, it said.

Three-quarters of Spain’s water tables have seen pollution from nitrates increase between 2016 and 2019, the report said citing Spanish government figures.

Nearly 29 percent of the country’s water tables had more than the amount of nitrate considered safe for drinking, according to a survey carried out by Greenpeace across Spain between April and September.

The environmental group said the government was not doing enough.

It pointed out that the amount of land deemed an “area vulnerable to nitrates” has risen to 12 million hectares in 2021, or 24 percent of Spain’s land mass, from around eight million hectares a decade ago, yet industrial farming has continued to grow.

“It is paradoxical to declare more and more areas vulnerable to nitrates”, but at the same time allow a “disproportionate rise” in the number of livestock on farms, Greenpeace said.

Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons, the Mar Menor in Spain’s southeast, according to a media investigation published earlier this week.

Scientists blamed decades of nitrate-laden runoffs for triggering vast blooms of algae that had depleted the water of the lagoon of oxygen, leaving fish suffocating underwater.

Two environmental groups submitted a formal complaint in early October to the European Union over Spain’s failure to protect the lagoon.

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