Environmental Protection Act (No. 527 of 2014).

An Act for the prevention of pollution, the conservation of a varied ecological system, for the promotion of involvement of the public in environmental protection and to provide for ecologically sustainable use of resources and the assessment of effects of economic activities on the environment. The purpose of this Act is to: 1) prevent the pollution of the environment and any risk of this, prevent and reduce emissions, eliminate adverse impacts caused by pollution and prevent environmental damage; 2) safeguard a healthy, pleasant, ecologically sustainable and biologically diverse environment, support sustainable development and combat climate change, 3) promote sustainable use of natural resources, reduce the amount and harmfulness of waste, and prevent adverse impacts caused by waste; 4) make the assessment of activities causing pollution and the consideration of the impacts as a whole more effective; 5) improve the opportunities of citizens to affect decision-making concerning the environment. The Act shall not apply to activities referred to in the Environmental Protection Act for Shipping (1672/2009) or the Marine Protection Act (1415/1994). This Act shall also not apply to the prevention of adverse effects caused by radiation to the extent that this is determined in the Nuclear Energy Act (990/1987) or Radiation Protection Act (592/1991).
The text consists of 240 sections divided into 21 Chapters: General provisions (1); General obligations, principles and prohibitions (2); Authorities and their duties (3); Environmental permit requirement and competence of the permit authorities (4); Permit procedure (5); Permit consideration and permit regulations (6); Permit consideration for an installation covered by the directive (7); Permit decision (8); Validity and amendment of permits and cessation of operations (9); Provisions that concern certain sectors (10); General notification procedure (10 a); Registration of activities (11); Notification procedure concerning non-recurring activities (12); Compensation (13); Treatment of contaminated soil and groundwater (14); State of the environment (15); Treatment and conveyance of wastewater outside a sewerage network (16); Substances that deplete the ozone layer and fluorinated greenhouse gases (17); Supervision and administrative enforcement (18); Appeal and enforcement of a decision (19); Miscellaneous provisions (20); Entry into force and transitional provisions (21).
The Act, among other things, defines environmental liability and sets out principles of environment protection, provides with respect to the administration of environmental matters, provides in particular with respect to water pollution and the protection of groundwater, provides with respect to international environmental obligations. A list of EU legislation to which this Act refers can be found at the end of section 240. Annex 1 lists activities that require an environmental permit.