Immission protection must not be limited to “Dieselgate” and driving restrictions

On 13th September 2017 Michael Thielke, head of department of environmental policy, waste management and immission protection of the Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment of Berlin, opened the 6th Müller-BBM expert discussion in the Convention Center of the Mercure MOA in Berlin.

Michael Thielke emphasized that currently nationwide the major topic of immission protection was air pollution in cities, “narrowly limited to the NO2 pollution caused by traffic and the locally still excessive levels of particulate matter”.

In his welcoming speech, he also made clear that the main focus of work in the Senate Department of Berlin lies in closely bringing into accordance the growing city´s interests of living, working, traffic and tourism with environment and nature. Thus, Michael Thielke specified: “Immission protection must not be limited to “Dieselgate” and driving restrictions.”

The first day of the symposium was dedicated to the main topics of “plant operation and air pollution control” as well as “immission protection law and plant licensing”. Lectures held by Martin Lutz (Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection), Susanne Wolff (Ministry of Rural Development, Environment and Agriculture of the federal state of Brandenburg), Dr. Martin Ruhrberg (German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW)), Klaus-Peter Prigge (Authority for Environment and Energy) and Dr. Elisabeth Schmid (German Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU)) were followed with interest and intensively discussed by the auditorium.

The “immission protection in urban land-use planning”, the “German Noise Prevention Code (TA Lärm)” as well as “urban areas” and “conflicts caused by industrial noise” were topics of the second day. The lectures held by Dr. Tim Schwarz (Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing), Dr. Jan Hennig (GSK Stockmann + colleagues), Dr. Volker Pischke (Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection), Dr. Mathias Hellriegel (Malmendier Hellriegel Lawyers) as well as Dr. Gernot Schiller (Redeker Sellner Dahs) included a number of practical examples and specific applications, and different aspects were presented.

The next Müller-BBM expert discussion will take place in 2018.