BRUSSELS, Belgium, January 30, 2004 (ENS) - Contaminated land should be subject to European Union waste rules once it is unfit for use and its owner is legally required to remove it, according to an advisor at the European Court of Justice. The opinion could have major implications for European contaminated land management practices if endorsed by the full court.

The court has been asked to rule in a case involving pollution of surrounding land by leaking underground gasoline tanks at a Texaco filling station in Brussels.

Driver fills up at a Brussels Texaco station. (Photo courtesy Verstappen)

Texaco argues that the land is not waste.

In her opinion for the court, delivered on Thursday, Advocate General Juliane Kokott says the contaminated land is "presumed to be waste" once it "can no longer be used for the purpose it was intended."

And it "must be considered as waste" once the owner is legally obliged to remove the land.

Kokott says the land should be defined as waste even before it has been dug up - a potentially explosive interpretation that could mean large tracts of contaminated land technically become landfills.

The logical legal extension is that they would require operating permits and would almost certainly breach the EU's landfill laws.

In a second part of the opinion the advocate general says it is up to Belgian courts to decide whether the station's owner or Texaco as the fuel supplier is responsible for the waste.

But she drops heavy hints that the oil firm should be held responsible - because of its "economic power" over the station owner, because the owner was not allowed to modify the tanks without Texaco's permission, and because the leaks were apparently worsened by Texaco's failure to fill the tanks properly.

{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}