The pollutant removal process is a long one. A consulting firm conducts soil investigations, responsibility has to be determined, and if there isn't a responsible company, state funding has to be sought. Clean-up efforts took place at the coal quay in Skelleftehamn in 2021.
Skellefteå faces significant challenges as a result of its industrial past. This primarily involves the costly and resource-intensive task of remediating contaminated areas. As per the action plan approved by the Building and Environment Committee, the aim is to clean up the most important sites by 2050.
However, the investigation of contaminated areas is demanding in terms of personnel. Currently, four part-time case officers are working on this issue, whose combined effort equates to two full-time positions. Ideally, at least four full-time positions would be required to handle the workload.
Finances pose another hurdle as clean-up operations are costly. If the polluting company no longer exists, state aid is required. An investigation by the County Administrative Board identified 688 potential contamination sites in the Skellefteå municipality based on previous industrial activity. However, it will not be feasible to examine all of them.
The Board is focused on 278 sites, categorised into four risk classes depending on the type of substances handled by the industries. Class 1 signifies high risk, of which Skellefteå has four. The municipality also hosts 84 Class 2 (large risk), 142 Class 3 (moderate risk), and 48 Class 4 (low risk) sites. The national goal is to examine and remediate, if needed, only the Class 1 and 2 sites.
Locations in the city of Skellefteå where there may be pollution, due to previous industrial activity.
The municipal environmental office now plans to methodically review these 88 high-risk sites, aiming to examine roughly seven new ones each year. The type of industry the company belonged to will be considered, as this can indicate what contaminants might be found in the soil.
One of the reasons why all sites can't be tackled at once is that the office also deals with incident-driven cases. For example, assessing contamination when construction or excavation is planned and ensuring proposed measures are sufficient.
-- Such cases have been time-consuming for the staff in recent years, says operational manager Elisabeth Berggren.
The rapid construction pace in Skellefteå means that some pollutants might be left unaddressed due to lack of time. This can be a risk if contaminants are spread through water or are surface-level hazards to humans.
Another significant cleanup that has been carried out was in the Scharins area near Klemensnäs, where fill materials were put in place after the contamination was excavated and deposited in a landfill. Picture from 2016.
Major projects include dealing with past air pollution fallouts that hamper new housing construction in areas like Skelleftehamn, Örviken, and Bureå. Future plans involve areas for the proposed Norrbotniabanan railway and relocating the E4 out of town.
Despite awareness that the current staff cannot fully adhere to the approved plan, politicians have decided to adopt it, prioritising the mentioned areas.