News Nitrogen law
'Nitrogen law must go back to the drawing board'
The nitrogen law will be discussed in the Senate tomorrow (March 2). Aalt Dijkhuizen, who is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Agrifacts Foundation (Staf), said on Twitter that he hopes 'the Senate will take its responsibility and send the nitrogen policy back to the drawing board'.
This in response to answers to 109 questions from the Senate by Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten (ChristenUnie). The Senate will spend the entire day on Tuesday to assess the nitrogen law. The final verdict is not expected until late in the evening.
No control on nitrogen-sensitive nature
"All that nitrogen-sensitive nature that has been registered in recent years. That concerns almost half of all nitrogen-sensitive nature in the Netherlands, there was no control over it," says Geesje Rotgers, who is associated with Staf as an investigative journalist. Schouten does not say in the answer that mistakes were made.
According to Rotgers, the agriculture minister does indicate that the independent assessment was missing and that not the most ideal, but outdated maps were used. "A lot depends on it. It involves substantial investments for many agricultural companies. The nitrogen policy on which companies are held accountable is calculated with a precision of 3 decimal places. But the government itself is very sloppy."
Far from transparent
There are gaps in the policy and if you want to get it right, you have to go back to the drawing board, agrees Rotgers. "The biggest problem is that the policy is far from transparent. The substantiation why certain nature areas have been added is not public. Or there simply isn't, that could also be the case. You expect that there is a certain document or report underneath, but in a lot of areas there seems to be nothing."
Linda van Eekeres
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