1. A legacy to be passed on

Soil and groundwater pollution is persistent, and in some cases irreversible. This is due to the very slow evolutionary kinetics of dispersion and degradation mechanisms. The time scale to be taken into account when investigating the causes or assessing the consequences is measured in decades. The progress made in industrial pollution prevention means that most of the pollution that will be dealt with over the next twenty years already exists, and is the result of past activities.

The result of this first observation is that this type of pollution, unlike those linked to aqueous discharges, atmospheric emissions or noise pollution, persists beyond the end of the activity and is transmitted with the site. The application of the polluter-pays principle encounters a major difficulty here, linked to the transfer of responsibility between successive operators on the...