Cleaning contaminated soil expected to cost billions
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Decontaminating land areas that have been spoiled by pollutants is expected to cost Finland about EUR 1.2 billion.
According to a report by the Finnish Environment Institute, annual costs of the cleanup of areas polluted by oil, metals, and chemicals are between EUR 50 and 70 million.
One third of all of the costs are incurred by municipalities and the state.
The main culprits in polluting the soil include industry, shooting ranges, sawmills, scrap yards, filling stations, greenhouses, and landfills.
A total of about 20,000 areas in Finland are believed to contain toxic contaminants. The Ministry of the Environment says that they all should be studied in the next 25 years.
About 3,350 of the locations, situated near residential areas, waterways, or ground water areas, are considered to require urgent attention and need to be examined and, if necessary, decontaminated within five years.
Anna-Maija Pajukallio of the Ministry of the Environment says that the problem is so serious that there is not enough money to solve it in just 20 years.
Most of the problem areas are known, but new ones emerge from time to time. For instance, during the construction of the new Lohja motorway, an old rubbish dump was found. Also in Lohja, DDT that had been buried in the ground, apparently in the 1970s, was recently found during excavation for a drain pipe.
The greatest number of problem areas are in Helsinki, the Uusimaa region, and the southwest of Finland.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 14.10.2004 - TODAY |
 Cleaning contaminated soil expected to cost billions |
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