NETHERLANDS: A row has broken out in the Netherlands over who should pay to clear up an estimated 150,000 litres of a secondary refrigerant leaked from an outdoor skating rink.
The propylene glycol coolant has leaked from a huge refrigeration system supplying FlevOnice, a 5km long outdoor skating rink in Biddinghuizen, polluting the surrounding soil and contaminating groundwater to levels in excess of permissible safe limits. The coolant, valued at over £1m, is thought to have leaked from the system, which contains around 400,000 litres in total, over the last few years.

Now there are discussions as to who pays for the clean-up operation and it is made more difficult by the fact that the company which owns the site has gone into liquidation.

Opened in 2007, the rink was operated for three months of the year. Its refrigeration system was called upon to freeze more than 2,500,000 litres of water to a level of 7cm.