No L 170/34 Official Journal of the European Communities 25. 6. 92 (Acts whose publication is not obligatory) COMMISSION COMMISSION DECISION of 11 March 1992 . concerning aid envisaged by the Netherlands Government in favour of an environmentally-sound disposal of manure (Only the Dutch text is authentic) (92/316/EEC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular the first subpara- graph of Article 93 (2) thereof, Having in accordance with the abovementioned Articles, given notice to the parties concerned to submit their comments to it, Whereas : I The Netherlands Government intends to institute an aid scheme for stimulating an environmentally-acceptable disposal of surplus manure (stimulering milieuhygiénisch verantwoorde afzet van mestoverschotten). This scheme, which is to be financed entirely with the yield of a levy to be paid by animal husbandry units who produce more manure than their land can take (i.e. more than 125 kg phosphates per hectare per annum), will finance the activities of the public foundation national manure bank (Stichting Landelijke Mestbank — SLM) in regions where there is a concentration of such units. The SLM as the statutory task of disposing of surplus manure in an envi- ronmentally-acceptable manner. The nature of the environmental damage which may be caused by the inappropriate disposal of animal manure comes under many headings. These include contamina- tion of surface and subterranean water supplies, gaseous emissions and residual heavy metals, through to bacteriol- ogical and aesthetic aspects. Whether or not environ- mental damage will be caused by the disposal of animal manure depends critically upon the conditions under which the disposal takes place, in terms of methods, timing and quantities. By letter dated 8 April 1991 the Netherlands Government notified the Commission, pursuant to Article 93 (3) of the Treaty, of its intentions. After a first examination of the notification, the Commis- sion considered that the aid was likely to distort competi- tion and affect trade between Member States by favouring certain animal farmers in the Netherlands. The Commis- sion noted that the description of activities to be financed by the SLM was not very clear, but that these would seem to concern transportation, storage and price regulation for manure disposal. In so far as the aid would be used to supply manure processing factories with manure, aid would seem to be granted to those factories as well. The Commission also took into consideration that it had previously-accepted two other manure aid schemes in the Netherlands : an aid scheme for the distribution of high quality manure with decreasing aid intensities until its expiration in 1995 and an aid scheme in favour of the construction of some 20 manure processing factories in 1990 to 1994 ('). The Commission concluded that the aid scheme for stimulating an environmentally-acceptable disposal of surplus manure would seem to involve operation aid, to which in principle none of the derogations in Article 92 can apply. Furthermore, the new aid scheme would seem to be incompatible with the conditions under which the Commission had approved the two previous schemes referred to above. The degressivity and the date of expira- tion of the scheme for distributing high-quality manure would have no real significance if the new scheme were adopted. As for the manure processing factories, the () OJ No C 82, 27. 3. 1991, p. 3.