A sense of responsibility.
SBB has carried out a comprehensive project to survey all its locations affected by legacy pollution. Locations constituting a danger to people and the environment are being cleaned up.
Some SBB sites have been polluted by intensive use over decades. Accidents or incorrect handling of chemicals and fuels have, in some places, caused contamination of the ground.
SBB has recognised the hazards that can be caused by contaminated land and has commissioned an in-house unit to record, examine and clean up these contaminated sites.
Experts working on a comprehensive project have identified more than 6000 sites potentially contaminated with pollutants. It has, fortunately, been possible after an initial examination to classify the great majority of these locations as not presenting a hazard to people or the environment.
Around 1000 areas remain under consideration by the experts after this first round of inspections. The experts are now examining these sites more closely to determine possible hazards for the ground water, rivers and lakes, air and soil.
As these intensive studies show, most of the locations examined so far are harmless. In about 70 cases, however, the experts have found a contaminated site that needed cleaning up. The first of these clean-up operations have already been completed. SBB will probably have cleaned up all the remaining contaminated sites by 2014.
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