Background Nitrogen Mood
Small successes for Van der Wal, partly thanks to MOB
While the House of Representatives was on recess for a few weeks, the cabinet has recently been able to continue working. Minister Christianne van de Wal of Nature and Nitrogen was even able to book two successes: she got her hands together for an adjustment of the nitrogen registration system (SSRS) - according to her, to better help PAS reporters in particular and she received permission from Brussels to to offer peak loaders an extra high compensation if they allow themselves to be bought out. In our weekly section Nitrogen Mood, we give an impression of the nitrogen crisis in our own way.
Good news for her, you might say. The big question is what it will actually entail. The SSRS system has been around for a number of years and was initially mainly aimed at scraping together extra agricultural nitrogen for housing. It had to be fed, among other things, with emissions from the pig farming purchase scheme.
Other priorities in non-transparent SSRS
Now the prioritization will be changed in order to better help the PAS reporters, the minister reports. How that goes, remains unclear. The internal workings of SSRS accounting are not transparent. It will be true, you can hope, but it has never been accounted for and the books are closed. The intention is that this will change, reports a spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. It would be good if this didn't take too long, because major interests are involved and many parties want to know whether everything is really going as promised. Incidentally, the SSRS was certainly not a hammer piece in the Council of Ministers. This week it was on the agenda for the third time. The most important thing, however, is whether things will finally go smoothly with the fulfillment of the promise to the PAS reporters. The counter can start running.
MB helps
In a letter Van der Wal (pictured with European Commissioner Frans Timmermans) did report to the House of Representatives at the beginning of this week that forty more PAS reporters have been helped, but this is thanks to the Council of State and environmental club MOB. The latter elicited a ruling from the highest court on the maximum calculation distance for nitrogen of 25 kilometres, as a result of which there is less calculated deposition from these companies. In total, 95 of the approximately 3.000 PAS reporters and interim workers have now been helped. The changed insights into the behavior of nitrogen emissions further than 500 meters from a company are not yet taken into account, although RIVM is aware of this. Such an adjustment may have to wait for a subsequent court ruling.
Professional ban and data public
The buyout of peak loaders desired by the government seems a step closer now that the European Commission has referred to the Green Deal and environmental targets has given permission to buy out companies at prices above market value. The question is whether it will actually give movement. Details of the scheme will be announced around the end of May, when the scheme will be published in the Government Gazette. The positive thing is that it is a voluntary arrangement. On the other hand, the question is who wants to participate, because the conditions are harsh: an EU-wide ban on restarting the same activity elsewhere. In addition, participants are included in a public register with name, address and fee. There are also many questions, such as what exactly does the extra high buy-out sum apply to: buildings, land, production rights? And what about taxation? The budget of €975 million also suggests that the minister is targeting a modest group of adopters, possibly mainly intensive livestock farmers.
Cheering continues
There has been no cheering from the agriculture sector about the scheme. It's not the news she's especially waiting for. "This is only good for those who stop," grumbles chairman Dirk Bruins of LTO Noord. Perspective must come from the Agricultural Table, but it is also a scarce commodity there, if an agreement is reached. LTO also expressed its dissatisfaction with it this week 'no alternative to the KDW essay' by government adviser Jan Willem Erisman and his colleagues Wim de Vries and Chris Backes. By commissioning the essay for these 'trusted' scientists, Minister Van der Wal prevented a broader and more open look around, LTO indicates. She calls make up for this missed opportunity.
MOB more often does not help
It was mentioned above that MOB sometimes helps agriculture. Usually this is experienced differently. Also with a series of lawsuits in which the organization and the board are connected to it Environmental Association tried to enforce grazing permits for a series of livestock farmers in Overijssel. They could breathe a sigh of relief last week: according to the Council of State no such thing is necessary. MOB is also sounding the alarm in Drenthe. There it objects to the arrival of a new yoghurt factory in Hoogeveen. This time not with reference to air quality, but to the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The club is doing this in a smart way, because this water quality legislation also offers a great chance of success for the claimant. According to water quality experts, among others, the law suffers from the same flaw as various other modern laws that affect the economy: there is always a requirement that is unrealistically high and will therefore not be met. In the case of the yoghurt factory, apart from that, there also seems to be a problem with the sewage treatment capacity.
Significant on both sides of the border
De permit for the yoghurt factory, meanwhile, is again confronted with the absurd nitrogen rules that companies have to deal with. The municipality of Hoogeveen has purchased emission capacity for the factory from two agricultural companies. This is necessary to make the nitrogen deposition by the new plant 'insignificant' compared to the initial situation. For the Netherlands this is an enormous task, for nearby nature reserves in Germany (which are also subject to deposition according to calculations) the much more flexible method of our eastern neighbors may be used.
In the Engbertsdijksvenen, in Kloosterhaar, things are even easier, although a lot of nitrogen is emitted there for nature restoration on behalf of Staatsbosbeheer. To retain water in the raised moor area, a network of loam dikes is being constructed, using loam from elsewhere in Twente. But the first sentence of this paragraph is written incorrectly in the light of natural law and ecologist jargon. Precisely because 'nature restoration' takes place in a nature reserve, the associated emissions from heavy earthmoving need not be registered or compensated. This reversal of the legal reality explains why almost all activities in nature areas are regarded as nature restoration, whether it actually leads to this or not.
Still 2035?
Finally, while the House of Representatives was free, the new Members of Parliament in the provinces have been working nicely in recent weeks. No new coalitions have yet been presented, but the momentum is building. Only in Utrecht things are going smoothly. According to the magazine Binnenland Bestuur, some general lines can also be discerned. One of these is that the provinces aim to achieve the climate and nitrogen targets by 2035 and not by 2030, as the cabinet still wants.
Klaas van der Horst
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