The Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law Paves the Way for Soil Remediation
Release Date:
2018-09-07
The recently promulgated Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law has drawn widespread attention from all sectors of society. At the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection held in May this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to ensure that the people can eat and live with peace of mind. The enactment of this law is precisely aimed at safeguarding and realizing that goal.
The recently promulgated Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law has drawn widespread attention from all sectors of society. At the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection held in May this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to ensure that the people can eat and live with peace of mind. The enactment of this law is precisely aimed at safeguarding and realizing that goal.
Soil formation is an extremely slow process. On the human timescale, it can be regarded as a non-renewable national strategic resource. Soil is closely linked to water bodies: soil pollutants can readily contaminate surface waters via surface runoff or infiltrate into groundwater through infiltration. Air pollution and water pollution, however, are quite different:
One is concealment. The air and water pollution is relatively intuitive and can be felt by the human senses, but soil pollution can only be sensed through sampling and testing of equipment.
The second factor is hysteresis. Pollutants in the soil do not manifest themselves immediately; international experience indicates that it typically takes ten to twenty years for their effects to become apparent.
Third, the effects are cumulative; the long-term accumulation of pollutants over the years exerts a measurable impact. Moreover, the contributing factors vary: in addition to anthropogenic emissions, atmospheric deposition and the inherent high background levels in the soil itself can elevate the concentrations of toxic and harmful substances in the soil.
Due to the heterogeneity of soil geology and the diverse characteristics of compound pollutants, accurately delineating the extent of contamination is challenging. Particularly in areas with abundant groundwater, these factors significantly increase the cost of comprehensive site remediation. Moreover, owing to the adsorptive properties of soil, once pollutants enter the subsurface, their removal and degradation are exceedingly difficult. In soil remediation technologies, organic-contaminant remediation methods such as thermal desorption and leaching, while highly effective at pollutant removal, also entail substantial costs. For soils contaminated with heavy metals, even after leaching, solidification, and stabilization, residual risks may persist. When pollutant concentrations accumulate to a certain threshold, they not only impair the soil’s own ecosystem but can also migrate into the atmosphere and aquatic systems through volatilization (e.g., mercury) or soil erosion, thereby further contaminating other environmental compartments and potentially posing risks to human health.
Following the promulgation of the Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law, it will facilitate the tracing of soil remediation costs and encourage enterprises that cause or may pose a risk of soil pollution to place greater emphasis on soil pollution prevention efforts.
Source: “Environmental Protection Department of Jiangsu Province” and “China Environment News”
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