Obligations related to the declaration and the declaration with periodic inspection

Any industrial facility operated or owned by a natural or legal person, public or private, may present a hazard to the environment (water, air, fauna, flora, etc.), public health or safety.

At European level, the European directive on industrial emissions (known as "IED") defines an integrated approach to pollution prevention and control: all member states are required to issue emission permits or authorizations for operators falling within the scope of the directive.

In France, regulatory constraints in this area are defined in the Environment Code: Book V of the legislative and regulatory parts (prevention of pollution, risks and nuisances).

The regulations governing facilities classified for environmental protection (ICPE; livre V – Titre I ^er of the regulatory part of the French Environment Code), define all activities and facilities that are potential sources of environmental nuisance, through the nomenclature of classified facilities. For each of these, several regimes are defined, depending on the scale of the activity and the presumed impact.

The first of these is the prefectoral declaration (declaration D or with periodic control DC). A priori, it presents the least risk for the above-mentioned interests, compared with the higher registration or prefectoral authorization regimes. This regime is unique to France, as it has no equivalent at European level in the absence of a specific directive adopted by the Member States (only IED authorizations are commonly issued throughout Europe).

The purpose of this article is to present the regulatory constraints associated with this system. It details the rules for classifying a facility in the nomenclature, the procedures for commissioning a facility subject to declaration, and the rules for operation and shutdown.

It will also present the particularities associated with the declaration regime with periodic control, which introduces specific constraints for certain activities that are sources of greater nuisance, notably in terms of operational control.