Response to interpellation 2023/24:377 on industrial cultural environments near water
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L argues that the government wants to protect valuable cultural environments and that the water management ordinance provides opportunities for exemptions for activities of public benefit. L emphasizes that hydropower is crucial for the energy system and that the government has paused the reassessment to ensure acceptable environmental adaptations 1 2. L argues that the county administrative boards have knowledge of regional cultural environments 1 and that work is being done for purposeful assessments 2. L argues that the previous government let small-scale hydropower owners suffer 3. S argues that the Swedish National Heritage Board lacks clear instructions, which creates uncertainty 4 5. S emphasizes that hydropower is important for the energy supply and that modernization of environmental permits is urgent 4. S argues that guidance is important for economic sustainability 5. S argues that the potential of hydropower must be taken into account 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! I have asked the Minister for Culture if she intends to take any measures in light of the Swedish National Heritage Board's assessment of the importance of protecting historical industrial environments classified as sensitive cultural environments and located near water.
The work within the government is distributed in such a way that it is I who shall answer the interpellation.
The question is posed in light of information that the possibilities to set less far-reaching requirements as follows from EU law in favor of socially beneficial activities and interests are not utilized with regard to high cultural environmental values, for example, in decisions on the classification of water bodies or when issuing environmental quality standards.
Madam Speaker! The information that no exceptions have been decided regarding the protection of valuable cultural environments is incorrect. There are examples where water bodies have been classified as heavily modified – we call them KMV – and that less stringent requirements have been decided with reference to the cultural environment. Among other things, two water bodies in the lower part of Rickleån in Västerbottens län have been classified as KMV with reference to national interest for the cultural environment.
The Water Management Ordinance specifies criteria for when a surface water body can be declared as KMV. One such criterion is if environmental improvement measures would result in a significant negative impact on interests judged to have great value for society as a whole, for example, the protection of valuable cultural environments. How a water body has been classified and which environmental quality standard applies to the body affects the requirements for environmental adaptation that are set in the individual case.
I and the government share the view that it is important to consider the need to protect valuable cultural environments. The Water Management Ordinance contains an obligation to, in connection with water management, fully utilize the opportunities provided by EU law regarding exemptions and the designation of water as heavily modified.
The assessments that need to be made before declaring KMV or decisions on environmental quality standards presuppose that knowledge exists regarding the cultural environments or that inventories are carried out. The County Administrative Boards have knowledge of the regional cultural environments. The Government has therefore tasked the County Administrative Boards with reporting how they have contributed to and used knowledge bases on cultural environments for reviews of environmental quality standards, as well as whether the knowledge bases have led to decisions on exemptions or less stringent quality requirements in accordance with the Water Management Ordinance and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management's regulations on classification and environmental quality standards regarding surface water. The reporting shall be limited to water bodies where there are activities covered by the national plan for modern environmental conditions for hydropower.
Madam Speaker! Finally, I also welcome that the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management has recently published a guidance for the assessment of cultural environments at KMV, developed in collaboration with the Swedish National Heritage Board. This guidance aims to support the work with assessments regarding cultural environments as grounds for declaring KMV.
In connection with the implementation of the national plan, there will be an opportunity to review environmental quality standards concerning valuable cultural environments when new underlying data becomes available.
Isak From (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Climate and the Environment, for the answer!
On Tuesday, I had an interpellation debate with Culture Minister Parisa Liljestrand here in the chamber regarding cultural environments at shores affected by wind power. I received an answer from the Culture Minister on that interpellation. The starting point for that interpellation was, as for this one, whether the National Heritage Board has the right conditions. The National Heritage Board has written and highlighted the difficulties seen in its mission regarding this issue. There are also no clear instructions from the government in this year's regulatory letter to the National Heritage Board.
With this said, the review of hydropower is one of the most important things we have to do. Especially large-scale hydropower is and will be extremely important for Sweden's energy supply. It is of the utmost importance that a power increase and simultaneously a modernization of the environmental permit can get underway.
When the new right-wing government took office, a decision was made on a one-year pause. Now the government has decided to extend that pause by an additional two months, so it will perhaps cease to apply on March 1. At that point, the assessments are to commence. It is, Madam Speaker, quite many who have requested guidance from the deciding authorities on how to view the impact on cultural heritage as well as on other more environment-related issues, such as fish migration routes and other things, and how this relates to the assessment as a strongly modified water.
My constituency Robertsfors is located in Västerbotten, just like Rickleån. It is welcome that the County Administrative Board in Västerbotten has had the conditions to decide on the welcome exception that has been made. This may also come to constitute a precedent for other similar reviews.
In this case, I have full confidence that the County Administrative Board has had relevant underlying material. What has emerged during previous parts of the reassessment process is that different County Administrative Boards in the country have viewed how this should be assessed very differently. This has been particularly pronounced when it concerns the County Administrative Board in Västra Götaland, which most often has not taken any consideration at all of heavily modified water when there has been an industrial cultural heritage in some form nearby.
This means, as a whole, that the industry sees this as a factor of uncertainty. That the Swedish National Heritage Board has not received a clear directive also means that this factor of uncertainty continues to float around. Now that the important tests are to start again, I wonder what guidance the Minister for Climate and Environment considers the government has given in that context.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Member, for the question! It is very pleasing that I get to discuss a subject that is truly of importance for many who work in proximity to hydropower and operate small-scale hydropower, but also for all those who safeguard the environment and the environmental aspects of how we utilize hydropower as a part of our electricity system.
Hydropower has a very important role in our energy system. It is of immense importance that we utilize the opportunity that hydropower provides. It is nature's own battery - we have dams that correspond to the battery capacity of 700 million electric cars. It is simply fantastic what storage capacity this base power constitutes.
One disadvantage of hydropower is that it has caused and continues to cause great damage to our ecosystem in Sweden and to the ecosystems in our watercourses. Some of the damage can be repaired, and in that case, technical measures need to be taken at the hydropower plants. That is, after all, the basis for the work that is currently underway.
At the same time, we see a need to review this work. It was in accordance with this that the government paused the reassessment of hydropower for one year. The purpose of that was simply to allow time for a review of the need for changes, regarding the consequences for the electricity system but also regarding the ways in which we implement the changes.
At the end of last year, we agreed to extend the break by two months, and the reason for that was that the work on proposals for changes had not had time to be completed and necessary decisions had not had time to be made. Therefore, we simply decided to extend the break.
We want to ensure that the re-evaluations' impact on hydropower becomes acceptable from both a power system perspective and an environmental perspective. We experience that the former has not been given sufficiently large space during the time we have had an energy crisis in the country.
Madam Speaker! The Member of Parliament raises this with the different county administrative boards' different assessments or different grounds for assessment. There is much that can be done, but I believe that an important part of this is what I took up in my original answer. If one is to explain something to KMV or make decisions on environmental quality standards, one must have good knowledge of the cultural environments. The county administrative boards have knowledge of the regional cultural environments.
Therefore, we handle this by tasking the county administrative boards to report on how they have contributed and used their knowledge base on the cultural environment for the review of environmental quality standards and whether the knowledge bases have led to decisions on exemptions or less stringent quality requirements. I look forward to receiving this report.
Regarding the concern raised when an ongoing work is paused in this manner, I want to say that there are specific parts that the government is proceeding from. We let Svenska kraftnät's mapping of the consequences be included as a basis for the revision we are making regarding how we shall conduct the assessment itself. It shall be carried out for the sake of the environment and so that hydropower can contribute to Sweden's energy system for a long time to come.
Isak From (S)
Madam Speaker! It is perhaps precisely an uncertainty factor when the input values from the different Tidö parties are different. We know very well that the Liberals are one of the parties that have pushed for the environmental aspect specifically to be ensured during the reassessment, while, for example, the Christian Democrats and the Sweden Democrats have pushed a line where it is the cultural heritage that should be ensured. The authorities that are to start the reassessment in a few weeks have not received guidance on what it is intended that they should come to.
Obviously, it has been a bit difficult in the Government Offices, because the issue was prepared for a period of one year but was not completed and needed two more months. Now the reassessment is to get underway.
It is clear that the hydropower fund created by the large hydropower companies shall primarily finance the review for small-scale hydropower, which has previously been the major conflict issue. The review of the large-scale production rivers shall primarily be funded by the energy companies themselves. In that case, guidance is extremely important, because it concerns both an environmental aspect and increased power output. It is also about economic sustainability. If it is to be economically sustainable to make the large investments needed to protect the environment, reduce the fluctuation in the water level – i.e., that the water levels rise and fall sharply – then something must come out. It must become economically sustainable for the companies that are now at the starting blocks and have partly already started the work. It is a foundation for the entire energy supply.
I welcome the assignment to Svenska kraftnät, so that one can obtain a holistic view of this. The starting point for the interpellation was, nevertheless, what can be read in the government's budget text and in the regulatory letters to Riksantikvarieämbetet. There is no governance in the area there. Parisa Liljestrand claims that Riksantikvarieämbetet has received the assignment, and they are demonstrably part of various preparatory groups concerning this. But Riksantikvarieämbetet has also expressed that they do not have all the underlying data, especially when it comes to coastal areas, in order to be able to say with certainty what has a major impact or not. There is thus a factor of uncertainty.
It is most welcome if the Minister for Climate and Environment here can give a clear promise that by March 1st it will be crystal clear what the government has concluded, how the pause has been handled, and what guidance will now be issued to the review authorities.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! The Government intends to take measures that contribute to ensuring that the impact of the reassessments on hydropower, which we are carrying out for environmental reasons – something the Liberals particularly safeguard – shall be acceptable from a power system perspective. The power system perspective is something that the government basis in its entirety safeguards. But they must also be acceptable from a cultural environment perspective, which several parties choose to raise in these discussions.
That the different parties have different starting points in such an issue is, of course, a challenge. It would be appreciated if the Liberals could have 52 percent and were able to govern in peace and quiet, but it is no problem for us to reach an agreement, analyze, and see what needs exist in society as we proceed with these examinations.
I think it is a sound way to approach the power one holds as a government to include several perspectives. One should not only include one's own party's ideological reasoning but also look at what reality reveals about the situation and what the different affected parties highlight.
We have therefore given a government mandate to Svenska kraftnät to map out what consequences the review of modern environmental conditions will have for our electricity system and for a secure electricity supply. It shall also describe what negative impact on hydropower's capacities is acceptable from an electricity system perspective. It is this that dominates in Svenska kraftnät's mandate.
In addition to this, the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management has worked on a mandate to review the conditions for the setting of standards for surface water. That mandate aims to clarify whether the agency's regulations and guidelines regarding classification and environmental quality standards for surface water are appropriately designed in relation to the requirements in the Water Management Ordinance, the Water Framework Directive, and relevant guidelines and recommendations coming from the EU. This applies particularly in relation to the application of exceptions and the classification of water as artificial or heavily modified, i.e., KMV as we spoke about earlier.
During the year, the government's mandate to the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management to, together with Svenska kraftnät and the Swedish Energy Agency, follow up and analyze the work of providing hydropower with modern environmental conditions has been reported on two occasions. It is, of course, something we have taken to heart.
Parallel to the authority's work, an analytical process has been ongoing within the Government Offices to review the need for any changes, simply because the government wants to take measures to ensure that the examinations are conducted in a purposeful manner.
We are well aware of the aspects highlighted by the Swedish National Heritage Board. We have had dialogue meetings with the relevant authorities to listen to views on the need for changes, and there the Swedish National Heritage Board has highlighted several different aspects which we, of course, take into account in the work that is ongoing. But no one who has listened to this debate can assume that these are simple issues that can be resolved in a simple way; instead, we need to ensure in various ways that this is carried out in a good manner where we, of course, also take the cultural environment into account.
The water management work takes place in six-year cycles, and in each cycle, the status of the water body shall be assessed and classified. Management plans and action programs shall be had, and environmental quality standards shall be updated. This is a very extensive work, and we want to do it in the right way.
I understand that people are impatient and already want to know what the government intends to change in the way the assessments are carried out. But one simply has to wait until the government comes with the announcement on how we are to handle NAP:s, but also the assessment of the environmental quality standards going forward.
Isak From (S)
Madam Speaker! The Minister for Climate and Environment and I can agree that it is a matter of conflicting interests.
We can also conclude from this debate that there are conflicting interests within the Government Offices, for for nearly 14 months now the government has not clarified what it intends with the pause. What is it for guidance that needs to be improved? The authorities have in different ways presented that the underlying materials may appear unclear. The Swedish National Heritage Board has suggested that it does not fully have the ability or power to carry out what it perhaps should do.
Similarly, I perceive that the Minister for Climate and Environment and I are in complete agreement that this review must get underway and that the great potential of hydropower must be utilized. It is clear that if we cannot utilize large-scale hydropower and increase its capacity in connection with the review which hopefully starts on March 1, Sweden as a whole will face quite large challenges and concerns regarding the energy supply.
It is also the case that the large increases and decreases in the water level, for example in the Skellefteälven, is something that the regulatory companies themselves also point out that they want and need to resolve. Therefore, it is very important from both an economic sustainability perspective, an environmental perspective, and an energy perspective that this assessment actually becomes clear and that things get started.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! There is much to mention here. It is of course so that we want these trials to take place in the best possible way. It is absolutely not the case that the various positions of the government basis are the reason why this is a work that is ongoing.
The reason why we have begun the work to change these processes is that nothing happened before our government took office; instead, it was allowed to continue in this manner. The previous government let the small-scale hydropower owners suffer due to its own lack of initiative. I can only regret that.
When our government takes office and assumes power, I can only ensure that these assessments are carried out in the best possible way and that we take into account not only the political differences of opinion regarding which public interests should be weighed from the different parties in the government basis, but also what our authorities and relevant parties highlight as deficient parts of how we carry out these assessments. The assessments shall be carried out in the best possible way, and we shall ensure that we improve how they are carried out.
Once again, it is not so simple that one can change this over a short period primarily based on political will; rather, it concerns quite technical issues as is so often the case when environmental work is underway. Water bodies that have, for example, significantly altered hydromorphological conditions as a result of human activity and actions adjacent to these watercourses can be assessed as having very great social utility. They can be identified as heavily modified, but there is also a desire to be purposeful and achieve the necessary improvement of the environment in these watercourses.
These are complex issues. We utilize all the time we have with the utmost vigilance and value it highly. I regret that it takes time to carry out political work, but I can only mention that it is fortunate that someone steps in and does something about this issue.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.