[The federal emission control law/monitoring practice of applications by health offices]

In accordance with a directive of the office of the Regional Government in Darmstadt, magistrates and county boards are to be involved in approval proceedings under the Pollution Control Act. In these proceedings, the health offices review and comment on the individual projects. In many cases the scope of the health office review overlaps with that of other public authorities, since a precise definition of the public health tasks has been lacking to date. In consultation with concerned parties and the approval authority, the Task Force of Hessian Health Offices (Arbeitsgemeinschaft hessischer Gesundheitsämter) has addressed this issue in principle, and has discussed and established testing criteria. In this article, we use two examples of health office reviews to present our results. We hope that the article will stimulate an exchange of experience with other health offices.