Below are the new environmental provisions contained in Chapter VI (articles 16 to 18) regarding environmental protection:
Article 16, amended by the Senate Assembly, integrates the provisions set forth by art. 78-sexies of the Environmental Code (Legislative Decree 152/2006), related to the analysis methods used for monitoring the state of waters - in order to ensure the intercomparability, at the level of the river basin, of the results of the monitoring itself, as well as the assessment of upward trends and reversals in the concentration of pollutants in groundwater - in order to overcome some of the objections raised by the European Commission in the context of EU Pilot case 7304/15/ENVI. To this end, it is provided that the district basin authorities promote agreements with the regions and autonomous provinces falling within their river basin of competence. During the examination in the Senate, the article in question was amended by adding a provision aimed at requiring the district basin authorities to make available on their official website, pursuant to art. 8 of the Legislative Decree 195/2005, the data from periodic monitoring as obtained from the analyses carried out by the aforementioned laboratories.
Article 17 addresses the regulation concerning emission limits for urban wastewater treatment plants discharging into sensitive areas, establishing that the same limits (referring to phosphorus and nitrogen content) must be monitored and respected not in relation to the plant's capacity but, more generally, to the pollutant load generated by the urban agglomeration. It is excluded that such additional monitoring and control activities entail new or greater burdens on public finances and on the integrated water service tariff for activities carried out by the single service manager. The provisions of the article do not have effects on what is established by article 92 of Legislative Decree 152/2006, which regulates vulnerable zones from agricultural nitrate sources, and on its application concerning the limits of use of agricultural materials containing nitrogen in the same areas.
Article 18 modifies in several points the rules that, within the framework of the Environmental Code referred to in Legislative Decree 152/2006, are aimed at implementing the provisions regarding industrial emissions and integrated environmental authorization (AIA) dictated by Directive 2010/75/EU. The purpose of the modifications is to achieve a complete transposition of the Directive and, consequently, to overcome the criticisms raised by the European Commission in the context of EU Pilot case 8978/16/ENVI. The modifications made affect four different groups of provisions: 1) the regulation of integrated environmental authorization (AIA), dictated by the second part of the Code; 2) the provisions on waste incineration and co-incineration plants contained in Title III-bis of the fourth part of the Code; 3) the rules regarding emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and large combustion plants, contained in the fifth part of the Code; 4) the regulation concerning installations and establishments producing titanium dioxide and calcium sulfates, contained in the fifth-bis part of the Code.
