Development & Infrastructure Magazine | Summer 2018

development+infrastructure Spring issue • 2018 Summer 2018: Remediation Solutions

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development+infrastructure SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing and development

brownfield flooding||ecology ecology| sustainable | sustainable building brownfield||EIA EIA || flooding building INTERNATIONAL CASE STUDIES:

SPECIAL SPECIALISSUE: ISSUE:

PFAS Sustainable housing Sustainable housing and development Capturing land and development value uplift Landfill remediation

GAS HOLDER VOIDS DEVELOPMENT OR INFILL OPPORTUNITIES EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST ARE INVITED SUBJECT TO DEMOLITION OF THE GAS HOLDERS A data room with a Land Condition Summary Report (containing gas holder void information and drawings) and information on how to express interest is available at: www.projectwinsorngpp.co.uk For any other enquiries please contact Jodie Falls: Tel: 0207 338 4261 Email: jodie.falls@realestate.bnpparibas

THOMAS STREET, STRETFORD, M32 0HT • Site area 1.03 hectares (2.54 acres) • Part freehold part leasehold

RADFORD ROAD, NOTTINGHAM, NG7 • Site area 1.04 hectares (2.59 acres) • Freehold

LITHERLAND ROAD, BOOTLE, L20 3JE • Site area 5.34 hectares (13.26 acres) • Freehold

BENGAL STREET, CHORLEY, PR7 1SA • Site Area 0.85 hectares (2.10 acres) • Freehold

ALFRED STREET, WAVERTREE, L7 6LE • Site Area 0.81 hectares (2 acres) • Freehold

What to do with empty gasholder bases?

National Grid and RIBA invited architects and designers worldwide to consider opportunities for redeveloping the empty gasholder bases into valuable structures. You can view the ideas, including the winning entry (right) at: www.ribacompetitions.com/gasholder

development+infrastructure

Contents Sustainable housing SPECIAL ISSUE:

and issue development Summer • 2018

4 The Brownfield Register Toolkits

Lancashire CPRE hopes that its toolkit will get more small sites on the register and remediated.

6 Electric Finnish to dig and dump?

Erkki Lindberg of Finnish company Eko Harden Technologies outlines the battle between dig and dump and electro-kinetic oxidation.

8 The strong and stable solution

Contaminated spoil is being used in Gothenburg to clean-up and expand the port.

10 Between Iraq and a hard place

Alistair Gray, environmental and MiHpt manager of IN SITU Site Investigation, explains the dangers of decontamination work in Iraq.

13 The problem with PFAS

We look at per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and how hard it is to classify and remediate them.

16 Is the Environmental Permitting Regime for old landfills

fit for purpose?

Mike Longman of VertaseFLI argues for a radical shake-up of the regulations covering their remediation.

18 In focus: Brunel Street remediation

CGL unpacks a complex remediation project in East London.

20 The best way to capture land value uplift?

We summarise the Commons debate between the Government and developers with some innovative solutions to a perennial problem.

22 Site Investigation 2018

From Brexit to sharing data to Conceptual Site Models and fake news in maps, we review the annual conference.

24 The Embankment

Rhodar describes the process of being involved in a major enabling works.

25 Maximising land use

Matt Abbott describes some effects of the National Planning Policy Framework which will feature heavily in two forthcoming conferences.

27 Service provider directory Cover photo courtesy of CGL

contents / editorial | 3

From the editor There’s an international theme to this issue.

Erkki Lindberg, director of Finnish company Eko Harden Technologies, outlines his battle with dig and dump using electrokinetic oxidation and in the port of Gothenburg, Kristina Bernstén, chief specialist at COWI, explains how to bind a toxic cocktail of tributyltin, PCBs and PAHs with a cement and blast furnace ash binder to the correct consistency so as to expand and deepen the port while cleaning it up at the same time.

Alistair Gray, environmental and MiHpt manager of IN SITU Site Investigation, says the company was the first to undertake membrane interface probing and hydraulic profiling in Iraq. And this was done despite very high temperatures, the threat of militants and H2S gas.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has revealed that about 6m US residents’ drinking water is contaminated with concentrations of perfluorooctanoic acid or perfluorooctane sulfonate that are above the USEPA’s Lifetime Health Advisory of 70 nanogrammes per litre. We look at efforts in the US to classify and remediate the pollutants.

Back in the UK, Lancashire CPRE recognises the shortage of personnel in planning departments and is encouraging communities to become involved in finding and recording smaller sites. There’s still a lot of work to do with councils, and to offset the viability issues that developers come up with.

Viability features large in a Commons-based debate between politicians and developers which also covered the thorny issues of Compulsory Purchase Orders and where the balance should be struck on land value uplift.

It is estimated there are up to 20,000 historic landfills in the UK, some of which are well positioned to become brownfield developments. But recent changes to the regulatory regime covering the remediation of old landfills has left those applying for permits in a difficult position. Mike Longman of Vertase FLI argues for a radical shake up.

Staying in the UK, CGL unpacks the complexities of remediation at a proposed 26-storey, mixed use development site in Brunel Street, East London. And Rhodar explains the process of enabling works at a key site in Manchester.

And we conclude with a review of Site Investigation 2018 which covered Brexit and effects on contaminated land, sharing data, and fake news in the form of maps, and a look ahead to the Remediation Conference.

Ian Grant

Managing Editor: Ian Grant Production: Di Hand. Deputy Editor: Eoin Redahan Sales: Faye Heslin-Jones, Yuliya Stuart. Marketing Manager: Rebecca Nolan Events Manager: Matthew Abbott. Managing Director: Julian Rose Published by Environment Analyst, Talbot House, Shrewsbury SY1 1LG Tel: 01743 818 008. Editorial: ian@environment-analyst.com General: enquiries@environment-analyst.com © Environment Analyst 2018. All rights reserved. No material may be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the copyright holders. www.developmentandinfrastructure.com

development+infrastructure

4 | Small sites

SPECIAL ISS

The Brownfield Register Toolkits

Susta and d

In an effort to get more smaller sites on the Brownfield Registers, CPRE has released its BR Toolkits. Jackie Copley, planning manager at CPRE Lancashire, explains how the guidance could encourage more brownfield development. Eoin Redahan reports.

How will these toolkits help in identifying smaller sites and getting them on the Registers?

We recognise planning department budgets have been slashed in recent years and there may not be adequate officer resources to cover all sites in an area. We hope that by engaging local people in the identification of sites, it will go some way towards covering the deficit in planning department capacity. Registers are to be updated on an annual basis. In the medium to long term, people can help to ensure Registers are more comprehensive and accurate, and result encourage more brownfield development.

What is the problem with the Brownfield Registers as it stands?

CPRE Lancashire is not critical of the Brownfield Land Registers. CPRE was an advocate of Registers being introduced to help identify sites for developers as an alternative to them using greenfield land. The definition of what constitutes a “suitable� site to be recorded on the Brownfield Registers is questionable.

We think all sites ought to be recorded, and classified as constrained, and that the constraint should be investigated.

Constrained sites need some action to unlock their development potential in the future.

Currently, it is easy for a developer to claim viability issues on their sites in order for them to be excluded from the

Register. By doing this, the available land supply is depleted and more greenfield land is allocated for development, so the developers achieve planning consent on greenfield sites instead. This is often to achieve higher land values and is not to do with completing more homes.

To what extent do you think smaller sites are being neglected?

Research by CPRE has shown small sites are not included. There is a push by Government to deliver a fifth of new homes on small brownfield sites.

What do you think could be done to make these smaller sites easier for local people and community groups to buy and develop?

The CPRE Lancashire Brownfield Land Register Toolkit aims to help identify sites. But, it is true more needs to be done

by Government. We are considering how to help local people and community groups buy and develop sites ourselves.

Perhaps we should campaign to Government to extend Compulsory Purchase Order powers and/or introduce Brownfield Community Regeneration funds linked to Neighbourhood Planning to help unlock the potential of brownfield sites in areas for green space, affordable housing, or both. We think it is much better for wasted land resources to be used in advance of land in the countryside.

Jackie Copley, planning manager, CPRE Lancashire

In your experience, how receptive are councils to the public bringing forward new sites? How big of an issue is council capacity?

Greater Manchester Combined Authority has engaged with us. Officers are receptive to brownfield regeneration.

They like the idea of engaging the community and offered to have a link to the Toolkit on their websites. We are trying to action this at the present time.

We hope to roll the Toolkit out more widely. At the moment, it is in infancy. If necessary, we may have to refine it. We understand brownfield sites are one element of local authorities land supply sources for example. Powers and finance are needed to bring forward brownfield sites. Capturing land value is important.

We are exploring these issues with councils.

Two of these toolkits are tailored to the Greater Manchester and Liverpool City regions. How have you done this?

We have provided contact details of the constituent local authorities and have referred to the Combined Authorities.

Not all geographies have this strategic planning tier. We know people are concerned about green belt loss at the strategic scale. We are trying to provide an alternative solution to greenfield

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development, as developers tend to focus on greenfield development in “call for site” procedures. Enabling people to engage is important. People learn about the respective roles of Combined Authorities and Local Planning Authorities. It is a confusing planning landscape as different combined authorities have different deals with Government and diverse powers.

How successful have the Brownfield Registers been in these two areas?

It is too early to tell. GMCA has a link on its website to Brownfield Registers across Greater Manchester from constituent authorities. Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has combined the planning registers into a single Excel sheet available on its website. Again, it relies on the local authorities’ data. We have worked successfully with community groups in Flixton and Stretford in Trafford who opposed green belt development proposals successfully. They like the idea of being solution-focused. Demonstrating the availability of alternative sites showed they are not anti-development per se, and it eroded developer “exceptional circumstance” claims.

You mentioned that the toolkits have been road tested with communities and local planning officers. Could you give me more details about this please?

Yes, we have worked with community groups in Flixton and St Helens and with officers at Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The idea is liked and the Toolkit has enabled people to link with planners in a helpful and constructive way. It has enabled people to understand the difficult process of site allocation, and shown how developers can easily claim viability issues to have sites excluded for Brownfield Registers and their Local Plan five year housing land supply. The Government is tightening up on viability and will be requiring developers to be more transparent in the future. We want to challenge some myths about brownfield viability.

The Brownfield Registers are properly in place now. What is your view of them?

They are good in theory, but the Government really needs to enshrine brownfield-first properly in the National Planning Policy Framework and bring back brownfield targets, if it means business on brownfield.

The NPPF 2012 is weak on brownfield

regeneration and it has accelerated greenfield development. More funds are needed to help cover the remediation of sites. We advocate partnership working between Government, new metro-mayors, developers/registered providers, and community groups.

What do you hope these toolkits will have achieved by this time next year?

We want farm fields and wildlife habitat in the countryside saved from preventable development as a direct result of the Toolkits being rolled out more widely. We hope the development industry will see the Toolkits as helpful and that they will more readily engage more in brownfield reuse, as opposed to focusing on gaining consents on more unsustainable greenfield development that is causing real harm to the countryside. We hope the Toolkits will help CPRE Lancashire and others to articulate on the brownfield-first agenda in an improved way.

CPRE Lancashire Brownfield Register Toolkits: https://goo.gl/wwL1qt bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

development+infrastructure

6 | International: in situ | bio

SPECIAL ISS

Electric Finish to dig and dump

Susta and d

Is in-situ remediation the future, or will contaminated soils keep shifting beneath our feet?

Erkki Lindberg, director of Finnish company Eko Harden Technologies, discusses the benefits of bioremediation and his company’s in-situ solution.

What are the existing issues with dig and dump remediation?

Technically, it’s very simple, but there are two major problems. The first is you don’t know how much you have to remove because that only becomes known when you start digging and then you have someone testing the soil who decides how far you have to go. If the pollutants are not just in the soil, but in the groundwater as well, there’s a danger that pollutants will spread further, or they have to start other actions such as pump and treat, a slow process that can take years and years.

They are the very common problems, and it is not so sustainable. The other problem is that just the last thing you want is having big trucks going back and forward on any site. You create further pollution problems – dust and noise – and so on. And then, of course, you are putting dirt on a pile elsewhere and not always treating it further, so you’ve stored it somewhere and tried to forget about it.

Do you think the cost will drive a change in the remediation industry?

Yes, but it’s not the only driver. All authorities everywhere are saying that they want to see the change to go in-situ.

The problem is many of these systems have limitations. They are not applicable for all types of pollutants. We have a system that is a cost effective method to remediate a wide variety of pollutants and we have years of experience and references in successfully cleaning up polluted sites.

Is this the case just in Finland or elsewhere too?

It’s global. Consulting companies are powerful players in the remediation business ecosystem everywhere in the world. Once they give you a green light to remediate a site, work starts quickly.

Erkki Lindberg, CTO Eko Harden Technologies

and other established, but more resource-intense methods, is still strong.

Environmental remediation is like an ocean-liner, it just takes a long time to steer it on a new course. Also, it is easier to evidence remediation results at a polluted site when the contaminated volume was physically replaced. We have to admit that very often one of the biggest benefits of dig and dump is the time factor. It can be much faster to use excavators and to remove the dirt away than wait for in-situ technologies to do the job – neatly but sometimes slowly. This is very often the case with property development projects.

So dig and dump is the biggest challenge to us. But we are seeing some movements as more successful reference cases have been brought into the public

All photos © Eko Harden Technologies

Progress has been made with bioremediation but what is holding it back from more widespread use?

The tradition of using dig and dump

domain. That makes it easier to convince them. Consultants have a high level of responsibility in remediation projects hence successful remediation cases are key to increase their trust towards new innovative, more sustainable and cost efficient methods.

EKOGRID technology involves creating electro-osmotic fields in the soil.

What is the benefit of using your EKOGRID technology and how does it work?

We are using electricity to create electric or electro-osmotic fields in the soil. In that field, we create electro-chemical reactions that are developing oxidising agents in the soil. That is the difference with other oxidation methods. They use a liquid or air or something else and you need to inject that into the soil. We are using the water in the soil to create the oxidising elements.

Very often, what I like to say is that we are actually helping nature itself to get rid of the oil.

At this moment, we can treat every oil-based contaminant plus some nasty ones, even pesticides. So EKOGRID has very wide applications. Some people in in-situ try to wash the soil, so it means that only those items that can be washed away with water will be removed and the others stay. That’s an example of the limitations they have. If you are using water flow to wash away the pollutants in the soil, it’s only a very small portion of pollutants that are removed. It’s the same if you want to suck gas out of the soil with evaporation.

Very often the in-situ treatments remove the heavier pollutants but the long-chain carbon pollutants will stay in the soil and that’s the biggest difference with EKOGRID. We can even treat crude oil.

On what scale does this technology work?

The biggest area we’ve treated so far has been 50,000m³, but this is not the limit because we can combine more units. This is the capacity of two units, but we can put four, five or six to work together. There are

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Sustainable housing and development

the mortality figure was the same as in normal conditions without EKOGRID.

How does your technology compare price-wise?

There are other in-situ systems that are cheaper but they are effective only for certain pollutants and certain conditions.

We are always comparing ourselves to dig and dump methods and costs and most often we can be cheaper because our “total cost of ownership” (TCO) effect for the customer is radically lower. Our TCO benefits are for instance a result of radically reduced physical land moving, which ties in machinery, transportation, and specialist staff for a long duration.

Waste management costs in dig and dump are a large cost component.

© Eko Harden Technologies 2017

Ex-situ and On-site

In situ

no limits area-wise. The leads come with electricity flow. If you have long leads/ cables, we can cover a lot of area and go as deep as needed. An area will include different types of situations. There will be clean areas and parts that will be polluted but it’s the same system - they are inside the same grid. That makes it simple to plan and design. Homogeneous conditions are not a limitation to us. No further harm will be done to an already clean area.

Once that area has been remediated, is it suitable for all sorts of land uses?

Afterwards, the main aim is to make it available for farming, building or whatever. Even during the treatment, if it’s an area like a park, you can still use that.

The treatment is under the soil surface and it’s not causing any harm to animals or people. We’re not using any gases or high voltage power, so that’s also a very important part of our system. It can all be treated underneath the soil and the area can be used as normal very often in the meantime.

What aspects of the technology need to be improved?

Our main task is to improve the technology to become faster. Practically this will be done by optimising the soil conditions e.g. by adding nutrients.

In addition, we aim to be able to monitor remediation projects in real time. We need to know what’s going on in the soil at any time and that’s the very expensive part. At this moment, you need to go there, take soil samples, and send them to the laboratory. It takes time and is costly. The technology is there - the electro-kinetic oxidation. We need to make remediation information available faster so that everyone involved in a project can see the progress.

How does it not damage any organisms in the soil?

The electrical field is very small and the amount of current flowing through the soil is miniscule. Laboratory tests have been carried out by adding fish eggs and small shrimps to contaminated water and

In terms of industry trends, how do you see companies approaching remediation in five years?

There is clearly a need to go towards in-situ systems. Also, maybe we are going away from companies that only provide one technology. You have to be able to combine different systems - even do turnkey projects. You have to be able to get rid of the problem and then combine different things. In Africa, we are collaborating with four companies that are normally our competitors but we have worked together on a project. We have one company excavating, one company providing microbes, one providing something else, and then us. Together we have optimised the process. If you don’t rely on just one system, then you’re guaranteed to get quick results. It gives clients security and belief that they know we’ll take care of the problem.

Do you think in-situ technologies could become a more attractive option than dig and dump?

It is certainly going that way because in-situ remediation is better than transporting pollution elsewhere. Even if you dig it up, you still have to do something about the pollutants. It’s a simpler process than digging down first and then having to fill the hole. Dig and dump is costly, a lot of hassle, and you have to get clean soil from somewhere.

bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

development+infrastructure

8 | International: S&S

SPECIAL ISS

Susta and d

Gothenburg port, Sweden.

The strong and stable solution In Gothenburg, contaminated spoils will be used to expand the port and clean up pollution. Kristina Bernstén, chief specialist at COWI, explains how they’ll do it.

Eoin Redahan reports.

E

ven by the standards of Roman emperors, Caligula was crazy.

According to the historian Suetonius, he gave his horse a house and furniture, sometimes appeared in public in a woman’s robe and slippers, and killed anyone who mentioned goats around him.

He also lined up his troops on the seashore and made them fill their helmets and gowns with seashells. He boasted about these “spoils from the ocean” and erected a monument to this victory – a shining tower that guided ships in the night.

Fast forward almost 2,000 thousand years and we find that in Gothenburg, too, they take spoils from the sea. These spoils are nowhere near as benign as seashells but they may prove a lot more useful to the people by the port.

Environmental and engineering consultants COWI, in conjunction with the Port of Gothenburg, Peab, and the State Geotechnical Institute, have decided to

What is stabilisation & solidification?

Stabilisation and solidification is a remediation technique that involves applying reagents to polluted soils to reduce the mobility of the contaminants. Reagents include cement, clays, blast furnace slag, and pulverised fuel ash. These binders immobilise the contaminants, after which they are encapsulated within concrete or another material to protect the product from leaching.

dredge contaminated sediments in the port and use them to create a 22ha site that is suitable for construction.

This approach should smite three

problems with one blow. About 70-90% of the sentiments on the port floor are contaminated by five decades’ worth of the toxic anti-fouling paint applied to commercial vessels and pleasure boats.

Problem is, this material cannot be disposed at sea. By using the stabilisation and solidification method, the team can turn the tainted material into a filler instead of stone or sand to create a new, much-needed bay area. As an added bonus, the dredging will help them maintain the navigation depth in the port.

To date, the S&S approach has proven successful in other parts of Sweden such as Djurgården, Stockholm, where a former port and gasworks were transformed into residential areas.

Kristina Bernstén, chief specialist at COWI explains how the process will work in Gothenburg port. “In short, sediment from dredging is mixed with various binding elements, such as cement. The

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mixture is then pumped into a banked area where new quays or terminal surfaces need to be created, whereupon it cures to produce a solid body – a monolith – which is then covered with a hard-crafted surface, e.g. asphalt.

“The environmental toxins are safely enclosed to create new areas suitable for construction. The binding action means that the risk of any substances leaching is negligible, assuming no physical impact occurs to the monolith, and the permeability of water is, like dense clay, small.”

As with any remediation project, there is no flat-pack solution. Each project brings unique challenges and the saltwater environment in the port of Gothenburg is no different.

The spoils around the port are mostly contaminated by tributyltin, with some polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and others metals thrown in for good measure. To deal with this, COWI and co have devised a bespoke binder recipe.

“For each project, a unique recipe for binders will have to be tested, and for the project in Gothenburg, a recipe with cement and ground-granulated blastfurnace slag seems to be the best if looking at geotechnical aspects and also leaching properties,” Bernstén says.

Different techniques will be used to mix the sediments and binders but the recipe for this particular port cake is relatively straightforward: l Dredge sediments

l Transport them to the target area l Mixed the sediments with the binders

(as described in the recipe)

l Pump into designated area l Wait for material to cure l Encase it l Garnish with buildings to taste

Of course, the process is far from this simple. The team conducted laboratory tests to find the right binder recipe for the contaminants and evaluated the geotechnical and environmental aspects of the port before proceeding.

“The goals for geotechnical strength and low permeability are fulfilled,” Bernstén adds, “and the tested technique – the stabilisation process – made it evenly mixed, which also was a goal. During the filling, the leaching of TBT due to high pH from the binders will require monitoring and maybe actions [due to] particle reductions and so on. However, this impact is very small in terms of environmental benefits that comes from the method.”

The team has verified and refined this process in the lab and completed a step field test in Spring 2017. Then it is on to the full-scale project, which is planned for 2019/20.

The Roman Emperor Caligula once commissioned a life-size statue of himself that was worshipped at the temple. At the port of Gothenburg, they will build a far more modest monument; but unlike Caligula it will be stable and those spoils from the sea will be put to good use.

bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

Environmental toxins are encapsulated and new areas for construction are created.

The Pros and Cons of S&S On paper, solidification and stabilisation is an attractive remediation method. It re-uses contaminated material, treats a broad range of contaminants, and negates the need for costly disposal.

However, the technique has its shortcomings too. On its website, remediation specialist Vertase FLI notes that S&S doesn’t actually get rid of the contaminated material, that bespoke binder formulations must be created for each site, and rigorous laboratory tests must be translated into real-world applications.

Environmental consultant COWI also notes that short-term pollution can be an issue. “Dredging spoils contain large amounts of organotin compounds such as TBT – highly toxic substances previously applied to the bottoms of boats.

There will be an increased leaching of toxins in the short term, both in the dredging itself and when the material is placed out to cure.”

Nevertheless, it remains a valuable solution in many instances, especially where land is either scarce or very expensive. “The method is one among other solutions for ‘taking care’ of contaminated sediments,” says Kristina Bernstén, chief specialist at COWI. “But there has to be a need for a new land/area, otherwise there are no winning aspects for the environment or the wallet. If you have a space to fill out or need a new area, this is a method that will benefit the environment and [make sense] economically.”

development+infrastructure

10 | International: Iraq project

SPECIAL ISS

Between Iraq and a hard place

Susta and d

Searing heat, security concerns, and contaminant plumes – we asked Alistair Gray, environmental and MiHpt manager of IN SITU Site Investigation, about the challenges of working in southern Iraq.

How did it even come about that you should be working with RSK in Iraq?

Both IN SITU managing director Darren Ward and I have a long history of working in Iraq with RSK – from 2014 we have been involved in providing specialist services in the remediation, construction, engineering and oil and gas projects large and small.

Quite a lot has changed in Iraq in the past few years, and there is always something new and exciting happening whenever we go there. We expressed interest in using our services in some of the remediation work that has been happening recently, and Ian Goodacre at RSK provided the perfect project to collaborate on.

Would you mind describing the site and the works you undertook?

The site is a large oil degassing facility, located in southern Iraq. There are no major towns or infrastructure near the site, so it feels quite exposed. We completed membrane interface probing, hydraulic profiling, services investigation using vacuum excavation and CAT/Jenny work, as well as laboratory testing, cable percussion drilling, and monitoring well installation. The aim of the project was to delineate two hydrocarbon plumes, one recent and one historical and assess their characteristics and mobility.

Why was the remediation work so necessary on this particular site?

The investigation was undertaken in order to halt the spread of dangerous contaminants and the loss of costly product. It is incredibly important that we protect the people we work with and the environment we work in – even in heavily industrial areas.

How bad was the contamination on site and to what extent did this inform the remediation options?

The contamination had not migrated as far as we first feared, so while the plumes were both significant, they were well contained and moving slowly. This gives us a large number of options when it comes to remediation strategies, as little risk to health or life is present. Remedial options are still being discussed and considered.

What was the division of work like between RSK Iraq and IN-SITU? RSK has an extensive history of working in Iraq. It led the project, while IN SITU provided specialist services, in order to get them the data they required. We have a close working relationship with RSK Iraq, as well as the plant and equipment necessary to undertake these projects.

Once the works were complete, the final

report was completed by members of both IN SITU and RSK from the UK and Middle East.

Which techniques did you use to identify the mobilisation, composition, and location characteristics of the plumes and why were these methods chosen?

Primarily, the positions to be investigated were probed using direct push technologies – this allowed up to get a detailed picture of the hydrological and geotechnical characteristics of the site. Membrane probing was then used to ascertain the relative levels of contamination. These techniques are quick and logs of the site are produced immediately. Following this information, cable percussion drilling and laboratory sampling were undertaken to get detailed information on the composition of the contamination. Several monitoring wells were installed in order to easily check the migration of the plumes in the future.

How big of a challenge were each of the following to your work: live oil/gas processing, historical infrastructure in place, and a lack of detailed service plans?

This was a big challenge. The dangers of working in a live oil facility were mitigated as much as possible. Before the job began, we gathered all the service plans and historical maps we could get our hands on. Even with this data, there was a large amount of uncertainty so we opted to use vacuum excavation and to clear positions to a depth of 1.2m, and then followed on with the CPT and MIP. There is an everpresent danger of H2S working inside the facility, so we employed personal gas detectors and external detectors outside the plant. The pre-probing of positions with CPT allowed us to identify any anomalies in the positions before using the cable percussion drilling and sampling.

Essentially, we did everything we could to mitigate the risks, and then proceeded with caution.

You completed several firsts for remediation projects in Iraq. Would you mind explaining these?

Yes – we believe we are the first to perform membrane interface probing and hydraulic

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Darren Ward meeting the British Ambassador to Iraq

profiling in Iraq. Due to the huge number of oil and gas facilities, and historical and fresh contaminated land projects, we felt that this tool in particular would be a great addition to anyone performing remediation investigations in the country – its quick and low impact screening for contamination is perfect in live processing areas, where a minimum of disturbance to operations is required.

You mentioned you had to work in extreme heat. What are the challenges of working in 50°C temperatures?

Working in the heat is extremely challenging. Early starts and early finishes on site are important to make the most

of the cooler hours wherever possible.

Special measures were undertaken to ensure the integrity of all the membrane probe standards and all the samples taken on site – volatile contaminants do not hang around for long if they are exposed to these temperatures. I am quite fair skinned, so plenty of sunblock, plenty of water, and as many trips into the air-conditioned building as time would allow were gratefully welcomed.

What security measures did you take, and to what extent is safety a concern in the area? Were there any difficult moments in this respect?

Security is provided by a team of

English and Iraq nationals, and we were accompanied on site and during all travel by a personal security team. They bring a good deal of peace of mind to working in the region, as well as providing translation (and a little Arabic teaching along the way).

The threats from militants are diminishing but still present, and movement around areas of the region is highly restricted.

Getting our equipment in and out of the field proved a little challenging, but with the correct contacts we were able to make it happen – good planning is key to successful projects in Iraq, as well as preparing for the unexpected. Permits and authorisations to travel are always required, sometimes even for the smallest journeys.

What’s next for the site?

The site is currently undergoing a change of ownership, so we shall see. I hope that we will do some further investigation work on the site.

Would you work in Iraq again?

I can’t wait to go back!

l We’re always keen to cover innovative

or unusual remediation projects at Environment Analyst.

Let us know more about your projects at bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

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development+infrastructure

PFAS | 13

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing The problem with PFAS and development What do you do with contaminants that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and resist degradation? The ITRC has produced six fact sheets that trace the growth and persistent problems with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Eoin Redahan reports.

I

n that dour Norwegian play, A Doll’s House, Oswald says: “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children”.

The same could probably be said for most types of remediation. There are legacy contaminants buried beneath the ground and we must atone for them. Certainly, when it comes to per- and polyfluoroalkyl products (PFAS), these transgressions are with us still and it will take a lot to make them go away.

The problem is that many of these substances resist degradation. They bioaccumulate. They are in our drinking water. They are in our blood and we’re not yet sure how bad they could be for our health. To make matters worse, they are difficult to remediate and classify, and haven’t been regulated until quite recently.

To address the issues at hand, the Washington DC-based Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) has created six PFAS fact sheets. The US-centric fact sheets cover the history of these substances, regulatory and naming issues, the problems with characterising them, and remediation methods.

imaging, protective clothing, electronics, construction, carpets, and cookware.

They were manufactured first in the middle of the last century, with production spanning the globe. In recent times, people have become increasingly concerned about the potentially harmful health effects of PFAS such as stunting children’s growth, elevated cholesterol levels, and reduced immunologic responses to vaccination.

As a result, PFAS products have been gradually phased out in the US. However, PFAS products had been in use for several decades and they weren’t really documented in environmental samples until the 2000s. This means that PFAS products have been present in landfills and leached into groundwater for more than 50 years before significant action was taken.

Environmental fate and transport

PFAS enter the environment in a variety of ways. As the ITRC notes: “Due to the solubility and persistence of many PFAS, environmental release mechanisms... include air emission and dispersion, spills, and disposal of manufacturing wastes, and wastewater. Potential impacts to air,Substances soil, surface water, stormwater, History and use History and Use of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) continued and groundwater are present not only PFAS are a group of more than 3,000 at release potentially over the fluorinated useful physical Six additional PFAAschemicals have recentlywith gained attention after their inclusion in theareas USEPAbut Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR).

The third round monitoring, or UCMR3, was promulgated surrounding areain.” 2012 for tracking chemicals and chemical properties suchofas the ability suspected to be present in drinking water, but do not have health-based standards set by the Safe Drinking Water Act. A So, in firefighting foams, PFAS can to repel water and oil. They have been summary of the occurrence data is included in the Regulations, Guidance, and Advisories Fact Sheet. migrate through air and soil. PFAS in used in firefighting foams, photographic

UCMR3

s”)

*Common regulatory criteria or health advisories 1 Sum of informal poll (NJ, NH, MN)

PFHxS* PFBS* PFDS PFNS PFHpS PFPeS

Sulfonates

FC “P d(

Pe rfl uo rin ate

Common State Analytes1

Po lyf luo rin ate d

All PFAS

Pe ra nd

Increasing Environmental, Regulatory, and Public Health Attention

Early Attention PFOS* PFOA*

Carboxylates

Source: J Hale, Kleinfelder, used with permission.

Many state regulatory agencies now request or require an expanded list of perfluoroalkyl substances (short and long chain), and fluorotelomers and polyfluoroalkyl substances are also receiving increased attention. This progression is illustrated in Figure 3-1.

PFNA* PFHpA

Regulations and guidance

Recent Attention PFTeDA, PFTrDA, PFDoA, PFUnA, PFDA, PFHxA, PFPeA, PFBA*

Fluorotelomers

All Other PFAS

consumer goods with hydrophobic, stain-resistant coatings are found in landfill leachate. PFAS-treated paper, textiles, and carpets can be sources of PFAS in house dust, and even skiers are at risk of inhalation exposure from the PFAS in ski wax found in snowmelt and surface waters. PFAS have been found everywhere, even in Antarctica – not exactly a place famous for its fire-fighting foams.

In the main, PFAS are found in fire training and fire response sites, industrial areas, landfills, and wastewater treatment plants. According to the ITRC, landfills are the ultimate repositories for PFAScontaminated industrial waste, waste from site mitigation works, and the aforementioned consumer goods. With these consumer products dumped from the 1950s onwards and landfill regulations not tightening in the US until the 1990s, these substances pose a formidable problem.

“Landfills constructed before the 1990s are not required to have synthetic flexible membrane liners, compacted soil liners, or leachate collection systems, causing waste to be in direct contact with underlying soil or groundwater,” it says. “Therefore, unlined landfills have a higher potential of contributing PFAS to groundwater. Landfills containing sources of PFAS will continue to release PFAS at slow but relatively steady rates for decades following initial placement.”

University of Queensland research underlines the sheer persistence of these substances, with PFAS found to have penetrated 12cm into a concrete pad at a fire training area.

Increasing Attention Future Attention

Thematic and not proportional.

Bottom of triangle indicates additional number of compounds; not a greater quantity by mass, concentration, or frequency of detection.

Figure 3-1. Emerging awareness and emphasis on PFAS occurrence in the environment

(Source:on J. Hale, usedinwith Emerging awareness and emphasis PFASKleinfelder, occurrence thepermission) environment

3.3 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is a United Nations treaty signed in 2001 aimed at reducing or eliminating the production, use, and release of key POPs. POPs are defined as synthetic, organic

PFAS only became contaminants of emerging concern in the US by the early 2000s but by that stage the horse had bolted. Recent research carried out by the US Environmental Protection Agency has revealed that about 6m US residents’ drinking water is contaminated with concentrations of perfluorooctanoic acid or perfluorooctane sulfonate that are above the USEPA’s Lifetime Health Advisory of 70 nanogrammes per litre.

According to the ITRC, the EPA worked with eight primary US PFOA manufacturers to eliminate or reduce

14 | PFAS

development+infrastructure

SPECIAL ISS

Susta and d

Schematic credit: Laura Trozzolo. This image also appeared in an ITRC factsheet.

Environmental Fate and Transport for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances continued

Conceptual site model for industrial sites

Figure 2. Conceptual site model for industrial sites.

(Source: Adapted from figure by L. Trozzolo, TRC, used with permis

and even the use of simpler, non-specific PFOA and many PFOA precursors by 2015; Characterisation and analysis hassources affected the clarity of significant restrictions have been placedthat initialisms Characterising PFAS pose Manufacturing facilities may be of PFAS releases to and thesampling environment include investigative results. on the use and import of PFAS; and the similar challenges, especially as these paper mills, metal finishers, wire manufacturers, plating substances facilities, as well a “Chemical and physical properties EPA has issued at least three Emergency can manufacturers, change over time. of the various states of aand given peror Administrative Orders toplastics, protect water photolithography, “Chemicals of concern often and Use fa resins, molds, semiconductors (see thewere History polyfluoroalkyl substance can be so supplies contaminated with PFAS. released as part of original PFAS different that they completely alter In fairness, the US has taken several mixtures, but also may be transformation Industrial may release PFAS tothethe environment via wastewater discharges (see S critical aspects of substance, such as steps in the past facilities few years to tackle PFAS products of PFAA precursors,” the ITRC solubility, volatility, and bioaccumulative contamination, but a couple of points notes.

“The focus on PFAAs means that disposal of wastes, accidental releases such as leaks and spills, and stack emissions. Sta potential,” it says. “As a result, care must be raised in the fact sheets warrant concern. significant portions of the total PFAS aerial deposition of PFAS totaken soilinand surface (withcontamination subsequent infiltration selecting the correctwater CAS number At the moment, no state requires PFAS might be missed, leadingto to ground to avoid confusion regarding the chemistry underestimates of plume life expectancy monitoring in public water supplies, and facility, as shown in Figure 2and (Davis et al. 2007; Shin et al.

2011). Stack emissions may res behaviour of the chemical being US EPA research has found “suggestive for groundwater and mass flux as well as transport of PFAS. PFAS in aerosols are mass.” more likely to be depo described.” and adsorbed on particles evidence of carcinogenic potential for PFAS contaminant For example, it says that a perfluoroboth PFOA and PFOS in humans”.

Furthermore, bygone phase 1 site long-range transport typically involves PFAS vapors. Industrial facilities may also contain octanoate anion is highly water soluble investigations didn’t identify PFAS withstorage negligible vapour pressure, whereas contamination because these chemicals inside b The elusive names response has occurred, AFFF areas, and AFFF fire suppression systems perfluoro-octanoic acid has very low water weren’t considered hazardous at the time.

Who would have thought the naming of So, not only are these chemicals dwelling substances could be so slippery? As a result solubility and sufficient vapour pressure The composition ofofPFAS released from industrial depends on the type of PFAS to partition out of water into air. Thus,facilities it in sites people thought were remediated, of the large number and variety PFAS, is crucial to distinguish betweenmay the aciduse many of these materials willor have been naming conventions have had to adapt facility.

For example, textile coating operations water-emulsion powdered fee and anionic forms when assessing PFAS moving underground for several decades. as more information for these emerging proportions offound.

PFCAs compared to PFSAs (Lassen et al. 2015; Gremmel, Frömel, and Kn “Many PFAS sites consist of releases contaminants has been According to properties.

As such, it is easy to see how the incorrect that occurred decades before PFAS were that affe the ITRC, the sheer number and complexity AFFF release sites, industrial sites may be less likely to co-release contaminants labelling of a PFAS substance could have a regulated,” the ITRC notes. “As a result, of these compounds has led to confusion fate the and transport conditions (unless site also includes AFFFplumes releases profound effect the on remediation. contaminant have hadfrom years to historical f among environmental community;

activities).

History of PFAS use 2.3 Landfills Landfills the ultimate repositories not only for PFAS 1950s & 1960s 1970s 1930 are sources 1930of- PFAS 1940because they are

waste, sewage Non-stick sludge,coatings and and waste from site mitigation, but also for PFAS-bearing PTFE invented Protective coatings Waterproof productsconsum PFOS produced hydrophobic, stain-resistant coatings (Busch et al. 2010; Eggen, Moeder, and Arukwe 201 timeline of PFAS, consumer products landfilled since the 1950s are potential sources to t

development+infrastructure

PFAS | 15

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing and development

ssion)

in the name, food containers, low density polyethylene (LDPE), and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF).

The presence of these substances in the sampling materials may skew the results; as such, the ITRC recommends using inert materials for sampling when possible.

Remediation techniques and new technologies

PFAS are both resistant to destructive treatment methods and expensive to remove. According to the ITRC, several factors make these substances difficult to remediate including multiple ionic states, variable isomers, differing alkyl groups, the effects of past remediation efforts, and co-mingled contaminants.

As a result, there are limited proven methods for dealing with PFAS contamination in solids. The field demonstrated technologies include excavation and off-site landfilling or incineration and sorption/stabilisation through ex-situ soil mixing. The ITRC also notes that capping offers promise, though

e textile and leather processors, DID YOU KNOW? as facilities using There are surfactants, detectable levels of PFAS in the blood serum act sheet for moreofinformation). of most the US population, according to the ITRC.

Section 2.4), on- and off-site ack emissions may result in develop, and in some cases, stabilise. dwater) Therefore, within site thecharacterisation airshed of the should not necessarily proceed the same way sult in shortand long-range air as for newer sites with more recent osited near source, while releases.the At these sites, sampling begins near the source area and steps outward areas where fire training or fire to determine extent. Data from private drinking water supply wells may be useful buildings.

in determining the extent of contaminant plumes.” produced used by the The or reason why sampling can be so problematic is down to the testing edstocks that contain greater receptacles used. According to the IRTS, nepper 2016).

In contrast to be a range of sampling materials must avoided as they contain PFAS substances. ect redox or other subsurface These include Teflon, PTFE, some fire training or coatings, fire suppression waterproof anything with fluoro

sub-surface contaminants could mobilise if ground conditions change.

The excavation and removal of material is seemingly the most straightforward method, yet it is also labour and resourceintensive. Firstly, the excavated area must be filled with clean material and then the contaminated material must be treated.

Incinerating the PFAS-tainted material is one way of destroying the excavated PFAS, but this can require temperatures of 300ºC-1,000ºC (according to Vecitis et al. 2008), which, of course, is energyintensive.

An alternative solution is to stabilise and solidify the PFAS-impacted soil before disposing it in landfill. So,

S-contaminated 1980s &industrial 1990s 1980s, 1990s & 2000s mer goods treated with Architectural resins Firefighting foams 10). Given the production the environment. Industrial waste

carbon nanotubes, resins, minerals, or biomaterials could be used to bind to PFAS to reduce their release from soil, but this doesn’t actually get rid of the contaminants.

“Sorption and stabilisation do not destroy PFAS, and information on the long-term stability of amendments for PFAS remediation is a data gap that currently limits their use,” the ITRC notes.

The ITRC says some commercially available sorbents have been developed to immobilise PFAS in soil. Granular activated carbon (GAC) and powder activated carbon have removed PFAS from groundwater and surface water, but these materials are less effective in the presence of co-contaminants.

Several technologies are available for remediating PFAS in liquids, though these too have their drawbacks. GAC is a proven technology that can apply organic materials such as coal and coconut.

According to the IRTS, these adsorbent media are porous, cover a large surface area, and can reduce PFAS to almost non-detectable concentrations. However, the GAC materials require incineration afterwards, which increases the carbon footprint.

Ion exchange technology (which uses synthetic polymers) has shown promise in terms of creating re-usable media that remove PFAS from water. Several other technologies have been developed to deal with PFAS in groundwater such as precipitation, flocculation, coagulation; and while current literature only documents bench-scale results, the ITRC notes that electrocoagulation could provide a low-cost, automatable treatment method.

As with wall of these technologies, time will tell whether they work on a commercial scale but given the sheer volume of challenges related to PFAS characterisation, testing, and remediation, the industry could certainly do with a few blue-chip solutions.

The fact sheets https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/fact-sheets/

bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

2015 PFAS manufacture eliminated in the US

development+infrastructure

16 | Waste licensing

SPECIAL ISS

Is the Environmental Permitting Regime fit for purpose?

Mike Longman of VertaseFLI argues for a radical shake-up of regulations covering the remediation of old landfills.

“L

essons learned� discussions following remediation of former landfill sites are often very lively affairs. VertaseFLI is at the forefront of the remediation of former landfill sites and has established a wealth of demonstrable expertise in bringing these often very large, complex and contentious brownfield sites back into beneficial use.

The most recent project in Reading included the excavation of 150,000m3 of landfill cap followed by the excavation and treatment of 244,000m3 of wastes deposited into former sand and gravel pits. The landfill possessed significant quantities of leachate and an interesting mix of industrial and commercial waste up to 11m deep. The site is immediately adjacent to a large residential area to the north and a main river to the south.

Planning and cost constraints dictated that the majority of the wastes could not be exported but must be treated to render them suitable for reuse.

VertaseFLI designed a robust Remediation Strategy which identified a multidisciplined approach to the treatment and re-assessment of treated materials which included source and particle size separation achieved through a number of approaches including screening, soil washing, air separation, hand picking and crushing/blending.

Whilst we faced the usual remediation challenges around ensuring the protection of controlled waters and human health, the key remediation drivers were environmental management of the works, meeting post-remediation geotechnical criteria and, predicting and managing postremediation gas characteristics.

The works were completed under a standard rules Mobile Treatment Deployment (MTP) and recovered soils reused in accordance with The Definition of Waste: Development Industry Code of Practice (DoWCoP) and appropriate Materials Management Plan. Early engagement with the local planning authority, Environment Agency and NHBC proved critical in ensuring the correct legislative framework was identified and complied with. All regulators showed a genuine interest and applied a pragmatic and understanding approach.

Permits, consents and other approvals

were granted in a timely manner and an active and on-going public liaison was established prior to works commencing.

Whilst both budget and programme were exceeded (hence those lively lessons learned debates), the environmental and geotechnical objectives were fully met and development with residential with private gardens is well underway.

Initial screening of wastes

Excavating landfill waste

For many years developers would not consider developing former landfill sites but remediation of the former landfill at Reading has clearly demonstrated that these difficult but often perfectly positioned brownfield sites can be brought back into beneficial use. VertaseFLI and indeed the wider industry are now being increasingly employed by developers to remediate similar sites all across the UK. There are an estimated 20,000 historic landfills in the UK all of which are likely to be having some detrimental environmental impact of one kind or another so the potential to address this

on-going land and groundwater quality issue as well as the need for ever increasing development land is enormous.

However, changes in permitting are afoot and which are causing much consternation. The Environment Agency is shifting position without first informing or consulting the remediation industry and secondly, not properly considering or establishing alternative rules.

Despite previously allowing and, we are aware in some quarters still allowing, the remediation of similar sites under MTP and DoWCoP, the Environment Agency is also stipulating the MTP and DoWCoP are now not suitable for the remediation of former landfill sites. The lack of consistency is an old chestnut which we shall not discuss further here.

The Environment Agency has tweaked the various standard rules permits including the MTP discretely and regularly over the past few years and now rightly point out, that the normal standard rules MTP deployments are not suitable for the treatment of wastes from former landfill sites irrespective of whether the historic landfill permit has been surrendered or not.

One should now consider that old landfills will always be landfills and are not brownfield land requiring remediation to render them suitable for reuse unless you are just going to dig them up and export them to another landfill. The Environment Agency go on to say that DoWCoP is not suitable for the reuse of soils produced by the treatment of the contents of old landfills.

So what does this mean for the development and remediation industry?

To cut a long story short, you have one of two options assuming you can’t afford to export the contents to another landfill; end of waste or bespoke waste recovery permit (WRP).

The end of waste panel and supporting guidance has been closed and withdrawn.

Susta and d

development+infrastructure

Waste licensing | 17

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing and development

Construction of POS areas

New tools from the Environment Agency such as IsitWaste appear to go some way to plugging the gap but the onus remains with the producer with no way of guaranteeing the outcome but every possibility the Environment Agency may subsequently disagree with your assessment and deem your materials waste. You would then be faced with the prospect of being pursued jointly by the Environment Agency and HMRC courtesy of their new working relationship in support of the recent amendments made to Part III of the Finance Act 1996 which widens the scope of Landfill Tax to cover any site (not exclusively landfills) operating without the appropriate environmental permit, appropriate exemption or, correctly managed and validated DoWCoP and MMP (https://goo.gl/tfzTd4).

This leaves us with the bespoke waste recovery permit route. To describe this as tortuous is an understatement. The key reasons are that very little of the supporting guidance is prepared in the context of remediation. The supporting guidance is aimed more at permanent waste treatment facilities or sites looking to permanently deposit recovered wastes to land. Remediation of historic landfills can only really “fit” into the latter category but it is hardly a snug fit. The application process is extensive and appears to roll all the usual requirements into one application. This includes amongst others: l waste recovery plan where you must satisfy the waste v disposal panel (yes

this panel really does exist!) that what you are proposing is recovery and not a sham disposal operation, l condition survey, l comprehensive site investigations followed by DQRA (human health & controlled water), l comprehensive operating manual on how you will assess and manage the potential environmental impact of your operations, l possible site engineering, l waste acceptance procedures and waste acceptance criteria and, l finally but not at least, surrender requirements.

Those of you in the know will probably very quickly come to the conclusion that this sounds awfully like an application to operate a landfill and not remediation of brownfield land. And do not think your WRP will be issued within 12 weeks either.

We are currently six months into the process for another landfill remediation project and there is still no permit (and that is not due to the quality of our application). There are some elements of the contaminated land regime here (CLR11) but it is dominated by the waste regime.

The greatest potential issue is what you might have to do to surrender your WRP. Unless you are recovering inert or very low risk non-hazardous waste, you will find yourself in standard surrender requirements. Be prepared to monitor your site post remediation for a minimum of two

years with no guarantee that surrender will be forthcoming. When the key guidance actually has landfill in the title (Landfill [EPR 5.02] and other permanent deposits of wastes), you could be forgiven for thinking you are surrendering a landfill permit and not undertaking remediation of contaminated land.

Despite my obvious sentiment, I would confirm that for the most part, I actually agree with the Environment Agency.

Remediation of historic landfills under a standard rules MTP is not appropriate.

Far more consideration and management of such activities is required. Further, reuse of recovered materials including soils from such activities is not fully in the “spirit” of the DoWCoP and for this reason, it is not an appropriate alternative to a permit. However, the current regulatory framework and guidance is similarly unsuitable without some radical review.

Should we not have a revision of types of Environmental Permit and conditions contained therein rather than trying to shoe-horn remediation of these valuable sites into waste activities? In the meantime, I will continue to work upon our bespoke WRP application for our new project in the hope our client does not just decide to walk away (which they have threatened to because of the complexity and time elapsed) and that I can subsequently surrender the permit before I retire. bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

development+infrastructure

18 | Groundwater clean-up

SPECIAL ISS

In focus: Brunel Street remediation

Susta and d

CGL has completed supervision for the initial phase of remediation and groundwater treatment at a proposed 26-storey, mixed use development site in Brunel Street, East London. So, what does this work entail? The ground solutions firm explained its role in the project.

You’ve completed the initial phase of remediation and groundwater treatment. What methods did you use for each?

The remediation works were undertaken

by Cognition Land & Water, with third party supervision and duplicate sampling provided by CGL. Two areas of the site around boreholes C4 and C5 were found to contain elevated concentrations of chlorinated solvents within the groundwater. A Detailed Quantitative Risk Assessment (DQRA) for controlled waters indicated that these concentrations posed a potential risk to controlled waters. The existing made ground and monitoring wells were removed by excavating materials in the affected area down to the London Clay Formation and backfilling with imported shingle. Two new monitoring wells were then installed at the two locations, and an in-situ chemical oxidant (RegenOx) was applied via the wells to treat the perched water.

In addition, the water was also circulated from the two wells through a portable

The excavation following removal of one of the impacted boreholes. This photo shows the presence of hydrocarbon stained soils and a scum/oily sheen on the surface of the groundwater.

water treatment system that included air sparging and filtering through carbon and sand filters before returning to the ground. Due to the limited size of the areas

The southern half of the site, towards the western boundary of the site with the London Underground/DLR

and the amount of water, these works were undertaken under a local agreement with the authorities. During the water treatment period of November 2017 to January 2018, water monitoring samples were taken at each location to observe the success of the groundwater remediation.

How much of an issue has hydrocarbon contamination been?

One area of the site around borehole B2 was identified as a possible hydrocarbon hotspot due to a hydrocarbon sheen noted on the groundwater during the CGL site investigation. The area was investigated by excavating the original location under a watching brief. Visually assessed potentially contaminated material was removed and stockpiled on a membrane, within a plastic bund, for validation sampling and testing. A monitoring well was installed in the original location and perched water was circulated through the water treatment plant as above.

Following these works, one round of water monitoring was conducted to obtain a sample for chemical analysis of the groundwater.

Four ground gas monitoring wells were also installed around the position to allow gas monitoring to be completed and

reassess the ground gas regime as elevated ground gases previously encountered in this location were thought to be due to the hydrocarbon contamination. The post-remediation ground gas monitoring demonstrated that ground gas protection measures were not required.

What premises or businesses existed on the site previously? Did your site investigation throw up anything unexpected?

The original investigation undertaken (by others) between 2003 and 2012 identified residential properties with interlinking streets in the earliest maps from circa 1869. After the Second World War, the site was levelled, and by 1946 it was indicated as having light commercial/industrial use.

Further development occurred over the years and by 1970 many of the buildings included depots, fuel stations, and vehicle garages. Paint spraying also took place in a transport depot. The desk study indicated little change until the last available map was produced in 1999. Discussions (by others) with the EHO at the time of the desk study also identified a timber yard on the site. In 2008, the buildings on site were demolished and cleared. The remaining buried tanks were removed.

development+infrastructure

Groundwater clean-up | 19

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing and development

What have the biggest challenges of the site been?

The shape of the site and the presence of a Thames Water Sewer. The site is long and thin and this made modelling for the DQRA challenging and affected the choices of remediation techniques for the chlorinated solvents in particular. The presence of the TW sewer meant there was an area along one whole side of the site where no intrusive works could take place and this also affected the development proposals and construction phase.

Ground movement analysis was undertaken, using various commercial software packages and empirical calculations, to assess the potential impact of the proposed development works (particularly from pile installation, excavations, and pile loading) on the nearby Thames Water infrastructure.

Given the location of the site, which precautions have you taken to ensure public safety in terms of air quality, noise, safety etc?

The site is not located in a densely populated residential area and the remediation works involved limited disturbance in terms of noise and air quality; however, the following precautions were undertaken: l Machinery and equipment had appropriate silencers fitted and were maintained and operated in line with manufacturers’ specifications l Vibrations were monitored but not considered to be a risk from this type of works

Cognition Land & Water operative inspecting the near surface made ground. l Dust levels were monitored, with the

option for suppression to be undertaken if required l Safety was managed by the use of appropriately trained staff, with necessary certificates and qualifications, PPE, safety barriers around excavations, services scanning, risk assessments, COSHH assessments, emergency plans, and toolbox talks.

The next phase of remediation will include putting in a vapour barrier and capping layers. What does this entail?

The vapour barrier will only be required in the block located above the area of boreholes C4 and C5, where the chlorinated solvents were treated and

is designed to mitigate the potential risk of vapours from residual contaminants entering the building. The vapour membrane is a specifically designed vapour resistant membrane that will be placed over the concrete floor slab, with all joints and penetrations sealed in place of the usual damp proof membrane.

The placement of the membrane will be inspected and verified by a suitably qualified engineer to ensure a continuous seal.

The capping layers are required to mitigate the contamination risk to future users, including asbestos fibres, in the shallow made ground at the site. Buildings and hardstanding create a barrier layer across much of the site; however, for areas of landscaping, clean topsoil and subsoil will need to be imported to form a capping layer. The capping layers must be a specific thickness, depending on whether the landscaping is communal or private. Once placed, they will be subject to verification inspection visits and testing of the materials to show they are chemically acceptable for use.

You’ve used advanced PLAXIS 3D finite element analysis to solve a range of ground-related problems on your projects. How does it work?

PLAXIS is a sophisticated piece of software that calculates stress/strains and displacement within materials when acted on by different forces or conditions.

It can calculate groundwater flow, ground movements, forces in structures etc and is a useful tool for understanding the behaviour of complicated construction sequences. CGL has used PLAXIS to value engineer several projects including modelling for the re-use of existing piles, specialist raft design, and limiting pile depths.

On a separate note, with brownfield development being the Government’s stated priority, do you see the UK’s remediation industry thriving in the coming years?

The remediation industry will be driven by the redevelopment of brownfield land.

The ever-increasing requirements for housing are ultimately likely to support the industry, although political uncertainty may affect the rate at which sites come through for development. l We’re always interested to hear about

interesting, innovative remediation projects. Get in touch:

The site from the southern half of the western boundary towards the southern tip of the site.

bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

development+infrastructure

20 | Policy

The best way to capture land value uplift?

In theory, the Government could use increases in land values to fund infrastructure projects, but capturing this uplift is far from straightforward. Politicians and developers debated the issue in the House of Commons in June. Eoin Redahan reports.

T

here will always be a villain in the piece. We just can’t help it. We need a Moriarty to our Sherlock Holmes and a Sauron for our Frodo. Even when the nemesis isn’t clear, we often ascribe certain villainous characteristics to people who don’t necessarily deserve them.

The seeming villain in the land value uplift story is the developer. The narrative is quite worn at this stage: The moneygrubbing developers sit on sites and wait for the value to soar while people are priced out of owning their own homes.

They weasel out of affordable housing commitments, citing viability loopholes and bamboozling under-resourced local authorities with their legal weavers.

Despite this caricature, you can see why some councils lose out when it comes to enforcing the affordable housing or infrastructure stipulations agreed in Section 106 agreements. They are under pressure to build homes and large developers are the ones that deliver them.

Councillor Martin Tett, Leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, explained: “Talking about local developments I am aware of, you have developers coming in quite often armed with armies of property experts, accountants, and so on. Quite often on the other side you will have a local council struggling to man its planning department with the resources it has now got, trying to engage in that sort of debate. It really is an uneven debate at the moment in many councils.”

If these councils cannot secure Government funding for new infrastructure and if they cannot capture infrastructure investment from Section 106 agreements and Community Infrastructure Levies, then they will struggle to meet the infrastructure needs of local residents.

Developers sometimes argue that agreed aspects in the Section 106 agreements make a project financially unviable. So, in their opinion, a 35% affordable housing provision or new school might take the profit away from a development scheme.

In this respect, John Wacher, strategic planning manager of Viability at the Greater London Authority, said the odds are often stacked against councils.

“Plan requirements are not priced in when land is purchased. When those land prices are used to inform land value in a viability assessment, it makes it almost inevitable that the policy requirements come out as being unviable.”

However, the contention during the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s Land Value Capture meeting is that councils and therefore communities are missing out on the uptick in land value when greenfield land gets permitted for residential development.

Having read the latest HCLG figures, Councillor Tett noted that the average price of a greenfield site is £21,000 per acre. For land with residential planning permission (outside of London) that number rises to £1.95m per acre.

“They (local authorities) are the ones who add the value and then the developer comes along,” said Matt Western, MP for Warwick & Leamington. “At the moment, it seems to be very skewed towards the developer, and the planning authority gets very little share out of them adding value.”

The developer perspective

Needless to say, housing developers are not comfortable with the blame being dumped outside their doors. When asked

by Liz Twist, MP for Blaydon, whether the value uplift gained by developers is too great under the current system and if it comes at the expense of affordable housing provision and other planning gains, Philip Barnes, group land director of Barratt

Developments, countered with cold facts.

“From Barratt’s perspective, in terms of new housing, a University of Liverpool study calculated that it generated £6bn of investment, of which £4bn was on affordable housing. It was around about £33,000 per house. There is no doubt there is a lot of value being captured for the community good.”

Paul Brocklehurst, chair of the Land Promoters and Developers Federation, also pointed to two examples where the effective tax rate on the land was 47%, with those figures possibly passing 50% if the landowner paid capital gains tax on the receipt.

Barnes believes that the land value uplift gained by developers is justified when you factor in obligations to deliver schools, affordable housing, open spaces, and other infrastructure requirements; and both he and Brocklehurst feel that developers’ hard bargaining during viability negotiations is overplayed.

“Only 15% end up in any form of viability negotiation,” claimed Barnes, citing Barratt’s own research. Brocklehurst broadly agreed. “In terms of the outline planning consents gained by our members, only 19% at the reserved matters stage have been renegotiated,” he added.

And yet, statistics often tally with the views of the people who gathered them.

Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, noted that the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s research from 2015 and 2016 “looked across a number of local authorities and established that around 48% of affordable homes had been obviated by means of viability assessments”.

Nevertheless, from a developer’s perspective, other forces prevent councils and communities from taking advantage of the uptick in land value. One of these is the Community Infrastructure Levy. According to Barnes, only 43% of local authorities have availed of the CIL. “Phil highlighted that unfortunately only 43% of local authorities have CIL charging

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Policy | 21

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing and development schedules in place,” Brocklehurst noted.

“They are not actually taking advantage of that. There is more that can be done around the edges around certain infrastructure requirements.”

As Wacher and others noted, a CIL was successfully introduced in 2012 to raise funds for Crossrail, and it proved to be such an effective source of funding that the GLA intends to use it for Crossrail 2. But even this seemingly straightforward solution brings its own difficulties.

“One of the challenges of CIL is to try to find the optimum rate where most development will pay,” said Daryl Phillips, chief executive planning lead at the District Councils’ Network. “Once you have fixed it, you are then stuck with it for a period of time because it is not so easy to change. It does not reflect land price changes going up or down during that period of time. CIL is quite a good tool in terms of a blunt tool.

It gets returns, but the challenge is getting it at the right level. One day it may be at the right level, but the next day it may not be.”

Another mechanism for capturing this uplift is the more forceful use of compulsory purchase orders; however, to do this would be to enter into a moral, political, and even economic minefield.

“CPO is a powerful tool, because, effectively, you are taking someone’s land,” said Phillips. “The problem about the process is it is an administrative nightmare to actually do it and the risk with it is substantial. As a very tiny example, in my district we have been trying to CPO a derelict public house for four years and we are still waiting for the Secretary of State’s decision.”

CPO may be important for getting major infrastructure projects built but it is not a useful tool for capturing land value uplift.

“CPO does not capture land value at all, because it ends up at the value you have to pay for if planning permission had been granted,” Phillips added. “Once you are on that basis, CPO is not looking at land value.

It is purely paying the market value for the land.”

So, in order for CPO to capture value uplift, the Compensation Act would have to change, which uncorks fresh problems.

“The other part is the cultural issue,” Phillips said. “Compulsory purchase is seen as taking someone’s land.”

Another option could be to do what

the English football team used to do after every World Cup – look to other countries’ systems for solutions. “If you look at Germany, Councillor Tett said, “the local council zones an area for development [and] the value of that land is frozen at the agricultural rate. All the uplift that is generated by the public policy decision is captured for all infrastructure in that locality.”

Tett said that this system has achieved cross-party buy-in, as decisions are made with the public interest in mind.

“You could move to what is actually a completely acceptable system across parties in Germany, of saying, ‘Quite frankly, the value of your land as an agricultural estate is what it is’. When the public decision makes it worth something multiple times, the value of that is actually taken by the public, not by the private individual.”

However, Brocklehurst noted that such an approach may get more purchase in Germany and the Netherlands where home ownership is arguably less cherished than it is in the UK and residential properties are often rented.

Cunning plans?

For all disagreement, one area that the developers and politicians agreed on was the need for clarity as early as possible in the place-making process. Councillor Tett called for a visible methodology to calculate viability. Similarly, Christopher Price, director of policy and advice at the Country Land and Business Association, highlights the importance of certainty in Local Plans.

“If we had that degree of certainty – i.e. not just a plan in place but a plan that was specific on what was required and where – it makes it so much easier for everyone to know where they stand, what is expected of them, and how much things are worth so we do not have the sort of uncertainty or the type of viability challenge we have been talked about so far.”

Even the developer side, which has arguably benefitted from viability negotiations, favours a target-specific, negotiation-free approach. “Yes, with a huge caveat: that the target motivates landowners to bring land forward,” Barnes said.

“In London, Barratt supported the 35% (affordable housing requirement). You give

35%; there is no negotiation. Barratt, with Berkeley Group, were supporting that.

We think it is starting to work well, [but] you cannot bring that in in Sunderland or Doncaster. Thirty five percent is not going to fly; it is not going to be of value there.”

Still, he believes that this certainty could be beneficial to all parties. “If we are all buying land with more certainty, the landowner is motivated and we are meeting the policies. That has to be the way forward.”

The debate https://goo.gl/ziCq4j

bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

They said: “‘Profit’ is not a dirty word. It is the level of profit that is the issue” Daryl Phillips “There are so many cases where viability is challenged after the planning permission is given and the developer comes back and says, ‘You know I agreed to that affordable housing? Sorry, I cannot do it now’” Councillor Tett “We are generally able to buy sites and deliver the policy in the south.

In the north, it can be a bit trickier because sales value and resulting land values are so much lower” Philip Barnes “Making a compulsory purchase order is a very drastic step to take.

It is effectively the state saying that it knows better what to do with your land than you do” Christopher Price “Would a simple solution be to reserve those CPO powers or perhaps to de-allocate permissions on a site if you do not deliver policy compliant developments? At that point you could simply say, “Actually, if you are not going to deliver the 40% affordable housing that is part of our Local Plan, we will step in”. You could CPO it or threaten CPO at that point. At that point, the developer can decide to sell it with hope value” Kevin Hollinrake

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22 | Conference review

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Site Investigation 2018 © Arcadis 2015

Useful Graphics

1 August 2018

4

What do landslides, unexploded bombs, and climate change have in common?

They were all part of the big data solution at Site Investigation 2018 “Feed them like a hungry child.”

“They need data.”

“They need intelligence.”

“They need our understanding.”

I

can’t imagine anyone ever sounded so caring, so parental, as Paul Nathanail did when he spoke about conceptual site models but several speakers did at least echo the managing director of Land Quality Management’s sentiments about the ever-broadening role of data in site investigations.

On a scorching day in West Kensington, data wormed its way into almost every talk, whether the monologues were about climate change, ground subsidence, or doctored photographs from the second World War. Well, with the possible exception of the Brexit talk; although, it’s fair to say that Emma Tattersdill’s talk also concerned the proliferation of information – this time in tangled, matter, legislative headache form.

The partner at Freeth Solicitors spoke about Brexit’s role in sculpting the future shape of the UK’s contaminated land

industry and environmental landscape. The good news is that she doesn’t believe Brexit, at least in the short term, will adversely affect the contaminated land industry.

“The UK contaminated land regime is not directly derived from EU law,” she said.

“It’s less likely that Brexit will lead to major changes.”

Similarly, she noted that legislation relating to landfill and wastewater should stay as it is for the moment, though she could envisage changes in waste management, with some calling for relaxed regulatory burdens on SMEs. That said, it would appear that the regulatory situation is about to become a lot more complicated, whether the Government likes it or not. Tattersdill said that while the UK intends to maintain current environmental legislation, the very fact that it will no longer be in the EU brings its own problems.

So, if the UK were to adopt a position where it largely sticks to EU policy, and adopts Norwegian-style model, it would still have to adhere to EU environmental policy without actually having a say in it.

Another worry raised by Tattersdill

is the enforcement and interpretation of rules once the UK is no longer part of the European Court of Justice. Gaps in regulations and lapsing agreements could create legal loopholes and allow others to sidestep important environmental regulations. Defra has spoken about creating an environmental watchdog but no one, as yet, knows the shape of this dog or the depth of its bite.

Also, the UK is a member of 33 European Agencies where information is shared and policy is exchanged but will they be able to partake in these after Brexit? At the moment, we can do little more than speculate.

Data illumination

Ever since we foolishly trusted our siblings to take bites of our chocolate bars when we were kids, we knew that sharing could be a problem (because they always took such huge bites). Even now that we’re all grown up, sharing is still a problem.

For some, like geologist Len Threadgold, sharing is key. The chairman and chief engineer of Geotechnics Ltd believes data sharing and better

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Conference Review | 23

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing and development

monitoring are needed on site to make the industry safer. After being asked if it would take a disaster before people push for best practice, he referred to the tragic landslides that occurred in Hong Kong back in 1972, where multiple land slips claimed the lives of at least 148 people.

“People are scared of chemicals but they’re not scared of gravity,” he said, before underlining the importance of publishing monitoring data from sites and making them openly available. “If ongoing monitoring were a requirement and we put the data into a common wealth of data – everyone would benefit,” he added.

In his talk on conceptual site models, Paul Nathanail also spoke of the importance of factoring in the long term when considering a site. He posed several questions that industry professionals should be asking themselves. Has climate change been factored into the plans? Will a development last more than 50 years, or will our children pick up the tab for our profligate ways?

“Are we covering all the bases?” he asked.

“Are we thinking about where a site will be in 20, 30, 40, 50, 80 years?”

Nathanail highlighted the need to feed conceptual models with data to illuminate decision-making – a point also made

by Gary Morin, technical director of Keynetix.

Morin spoke about how Building Information Modelling helps workers respond immediately to changes on site.

The immediate capture and access of the latest data means workers can make decisions and act upon them within minutes.

Gary Morin For example, Morin noted that if the data tell you there are anomalies in boreholes, another two boreholes can be dug on-site immediately to investigate what’s going on without leaving the area and logging the data back in the office before making a decision.

For Jon Raven, senior consultant of Arcadis, BIM at its simplest “is a common data environment that leads to risk reduction and helps us communicate between disciplines”. It reduces lifecycle and programme costs and allows for

They said: “It almost seems the geotechnical industry is the poor relation of the contaminated land industry” delegate “It’s unlikely that the electorate would accept a watering down of environmental regulation” Emma Tattersdill, partner at Freeth Solicitors “Site investigation is a process not a product” Len Threadgold, chairman and chief engineer of Geotechnics Ltd

multidisciplinary project delivery while increasing efficiencies and reducing risks.

Fake data and forgotten sites

In the right hands, the recent wellspring of publicly available data can be refined by experts to provide services that are far cheaper, exhaustive, and wide-reaching than in time’s past.

One example is the technology described by Paul Bhatia, director of Geomatic Ventures. His company has made use of freely available Sentinel-1 satellite data to create subsidence maps for all of the UK that can be updated every six days.

According to the company, its time series Paul Bhatia algorithm improves “the density and spatial distribution of survey points to return measurements in vegetated areas” – a method that sees through any weather and time of night or day to produce images that record the tiniest amounts of subsidence. All of this is done without bending a single leaf of grass.

Perhaps land subsidence maps like these are useful for those decontaminating the land peppered by World War II bombs. According to Mark Daubny, managing director of 6 Alpha Associates, 10% of the bombs dropped

by the sky during the second great war never exploded due to faulty fuses, site conditions, and other factors.

However, these bombs don’t always lie in wait where you would expect. At the time of speaking, Daubny knew the precise location of 90-100 UXOs in London, but other areas such as a benign-looking field in Sussex may be even more dangerous.

Areas such as the field that flashed on the projector screen were once used for military training purposes and contain many a hidden peril. Similarly, when Canadian and US engineers were tasked with clearing bombed UK airfield sites after the war ended, their UXO sweeps were not always the most thorough.

It is strange in a way that we can account for the state of mind of these men – who were so tired of fighting and close to seeing their families again – and use this information in site investigations.

As time goes by, we have more and more data sources with which to evaluate sites, to give us accurate representations of areas that have been scoured by bombs or polluted by hydrocarbon plumes. But are we too trusting?

Piers Edgell, account director of Landmark Information Group, showed everyone an old black and white aerial photograph of a country field.

Green, sleepy, and Piers Edgell benign it looked – a fine field for farming. Except something was missing.

The Government had airbrushed an entire airfield from the picture lest the information fall into enemy hands.

Next time you’re looking at a map, Edgell noted, think about who put it together and for what audience it was intended. It was a timely reminder of the pre-conceptions we often bring into work. Implicitly many of us would presume that a black and white photograph is to be as trusted as an artifact buried in the ground.

“I never thought I’d see where an aerial photograph is not a photograph,” mused event chairman David Giles as he brought the day to a close. “We’ve brought fake news into site investigation.” bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

development+infrastructure

24 | Enabling works

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The Embankment Rhodar was appointed as demolition and remediation specialist for the enabling works phase of the strategically important Embankment West development site in Manchester and describes the process.

R

hodar recently launched land remediation and demolition services to complement its established asbestos removal business and the re-brand enables it to provide an end-to-end specialist enabling works solution for the construction industry.

The company has a 500+ workforce, operating from 12 locations in the UK. Demolition specialist Bagnall UK was integrated into Rhodar in late 2016, and a new remediation division was established last year.

The Manchester site forms part of the Greengate Regeneration Scheme, transforming the western part of the former Exchange Railway Station with a residential-led, mixed use development – this major scheme will see the construction of three mixed use tower blocks of up to 18 storeys directly adjacent to Manchester City Centre. Rhodar’s package of work began in March 2018 and is expected to be completed by mid-August.

Enabling works commenced with the demolition of several brick-built arches as part of the railway viaduct structure (which also formed some of the platforms for the Manchester Exchange Railway Station) removing 22,000t of rubble and waste.

Being located near to Manchester Cathedral

and Manchester Arena, and directly adjacent to other high-rise apartment blocks, live train lines and with a significant change in levels across the site, of approximately 9m, it was vital that effective coordination and care was exercised to minimise disruption, noise and vibration impact for the public.

Follow-on remediation comprised made ground excavation, segregation and disposal together with removal of relict in-ground structures including deep pier foundations from the former railway arches. A major earthworks programme is being undertaken to create a suitable development platform which includes laboratory and in-situ testing to confirm geotechnical parameters for the back fill materials and suitability for subsequent road pavement construction.

Implementation of a Materials Management Plan was required to meet the requirements of the Definition of Waste Code of Practice during remediation of contaminated made ground and working as part of the project team, acceptance criteria for material re-use were agreed with the project geo-environmental consultant to provide protection to human health and controlled waters receptors. Verification sampling and analysis has accompanied

the earthworks to provide assurance that materials selected for re-use adhered to the required specification. Verification samples have been obtained for laboratory analysis and numerous in-situ tests performed to provide a level of quality control appropriate for the works.

Modification of existing boundary structures, both above and below ground, including saw cutting of brickwork and careful stitch drilling to depths of four metres below ground level have been necessary to remove relict obstructions.

These activities have been undertaken under the supervision of a structural engineer and carefully and precisely executed to protect adjacent off-site features, including a public highway.

On completion of earthworks in mid-July, the site will be trimmed to final formation level and a piling mat and access ramps constructed from recycled materials recovered from demolition of the arches, crushed to a 6F2 grade in accordance with the Specification for Highways Works.

Rhodar was due to hand back the site as a development-ready platform, free from impediments and to the client’s precise construction specification in mid-August. l info@rhodar.co.uk

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Conference preview | 25

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing Maximising effective land use and development Environment Analyst’s Matthew Abbott looks at the key issues being covered in the forthcoming conferences: Risk and Remediation and Building Sustainable Towns and Cities

W

ith the recent publication of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF 2018), the first in over six years, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government looks to implement around 85 reforms that were announced previously through the Housing White Paper, the planning for the Planning for the Right Homes in the Right Places consultation; and the draft revised National Planning Policy Framework consultation.

NPPF 2018 clearly states that Local planning authorities, and other plan-making bodies, should take a proactive role in identifying and helping to bring forward land that may be suitable for meeting development needs, including suitable sites on brownfield registers or held in public ownership, using the full range of powers available to them.

Will this revision ensure the use of land is maximised, strengthen protections for the green belt, and place a greater emphasis on converting planning permissions into homes? Only time will tell and with Local Authority resources already stretched to the limit, will there be enough scope to maximise the effective use of land?

Environment Analyst and Brownfield Briefing will be exploring the fundamentals behind the NPPF and the impacts that this has on the environmental sector through two conferences this September. Building Sustainable Towns and Cities, Environment Analyst’s new event for 2018. is set to analyse the opportunities linked to the current housing crisis and policy initiatives on regional development, planning reform, urban regeneration and environmental protection. The day will bring together those working on the front-line delivering environmental solutions to share best practice with those charged with planning and building the cities of the future. It will feature key presentations on planning reform, brownfield policy, infrastructure requirements and housing market outlook.

The second of the events and back for its 15, year, Brownfield Risk and Remediation will join regulators, consultants, remediation contractors

Michael O’Doherty, Cabinet Office/LGA One Public Estate Programme, Speaker at Sustainable Cities

Gareth Leonard of Regenesis is a Speaker at Risk and Remediation

James Cartwright of McAuliffe is speaking at the Remediation Conference

and other industry experts working across the full spectrum of brownfield land to discuss a wide range of issues associated with contaminated land risk assessment and remediation. Key aspects will include regulatory updates and the sharing of first-hand experiences designed to develop practical and costeffective solutions to current remediation challenges.

Bringing together local authorities, planning consultants, architects, house builders, EIA consultants and contractors Building Sustainable Towns and Cities will examine the key driver, being the real need to provide and build 300,000 homes each year. Intrinsically linked to this is the remediation of brownfield land, which as highlighted by the Campaign to Protect

Rural England (CPRE), could provide for more than one million homes. Could the Government’s pledge to spend £886m on local infrastructure, including land remediation work, be the green light to success?

NPPF 2018 also sees an alignment with environmental goals, with better protection for biodiversity. The framework will see the planning system align more closely with Defra’s 25 Year Environment Plan, which aims to leave the environment in a better state for future generations, placing a greater importance on air quality when deciding applications and offers more protection for ancient woodland and trees.

We see throughout the NPPF the use of terminology of “making effective use of land” and it is clear to see the critical role that previously-developed, or brownfield land has in meeting the nations housing needs. Risk and Remediation 2018 provides the link with Building Sustainable Towns and Cities agenda by providing the knowledge, understanding and technical details required to ensure that the homes built are in the locations needed and fit the needs of the occupants.

The event will explore and showcase the latest technology being used in the remediation of land whilst providing key policy up-dates in the fields of waste management and legal operations.

There is a clear case that the key partners, those charged with detailing local planning and allocation of land, remediation contractors, consultants, regulators and developers are brought together to facilitate the cross-networking required to deliver a viable housing strategy. Without a collaborative approach between these groups then the Government’s plan for the right homes built in the right places while at the same time as protecting our environment will become even more challenging than it already is.

Building Sustainable Towns and Cities takes place on Thursday 20 September at the Holiday Inn, Kensington with Risk and Remediation a week later on Thursday 27 September at the Tower Hotel, London.

bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com

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development+infrastructure

Directory | 27

Service Provider Sustainable housing Directory SPECIAL ISSUE:

andisdevelopment Below a selection of service providers including land remediation consultants and contractors as well as flood risk & control services. For our full directory, please visit our website www.developmentandinfrastructure.com/directory Land Remediation Consultants and Contractors AECOM

A Fortune 500 firm, AECOM is the world’s largest remediation company with more than 5,000 remediation staff world-wide and a gross annual revenue from remediation projects alone of over $1 billion. We design, build, finance and operate infrastructure assets for governments, businesses and organisations in more than 150 countries.

Rachel Odonnell Business Unit Director, Environmental Liability Solutions, Environment & Ground Engineering Tel: +44-7753912128 Email: rachel.odonnell@aecom.com Web: www.aecom.com

Arcadis UK Ltd

Arcadis FieldTech Solutions has a dedicated team of environmental experts who specialise in meeting your environmental contracting needs including Geotechnical and Environmental Ground investigation; specialist in-situ probing (MIP and LIF);tailored design and build remediation contracting services; decommissioning and demolition services (including explosive demolition) and creating value from redundant assets.

Mark Webb Senior Technical Director 34 York Way, London, N1 9AB Tel: 01638 674767 Email: mark.webb@arcadis.com Web: http://arcadis.com

Celtic EnGlobe

Celtic-EnGlobe is one of the leading remediation and brownfield enabling works contractors in the UK, with a proven track record of delivery after more than 25 years in the industry. Celtic-EnGlobe is part of EnGlobe Corp, a world leader in providing integrated environmental services which operates in the UK, France, Middle East, USA and Canada. By partnering with us, you are able to rely on our extensive experience and delivery capability.

Kathy Newall Business Development Manager Unit 8, Commerce Park Brunel Rad, Theale, Reading, RG7 4AB Tel: 07985 836227 | Tel: 01189 167340 Email: kathy.newall@celtic-ltd.com Web: http://celtic-ltd.com

DEME

DEME Environmental Contractors UK Ltd DEC is one of Europe’s leading environmental remediation contractors with more than 25 years’ worldwide experience in the treatment of contaminated soil, sediment and groundwater using both in-situ and ex-situ technologies (on and off site). Projects undertaken range from small petrol station clean-ups to large-scale, complex, multidisciplinary remediation schemes.

Jim McNeilly General Manager UK Tel: 07713 121839 Email: mcneilly.james@deme-group. com Web: http://deme-group.com/dec

Campbell Reith

Campbell Reith is an independent firm of consulting engineers providing structural, civil, environmental, geotechnical, highways and transportation services.

With a reputation for producing imaginative and cost effective design solutions, we are recognised by our clients as a firm of innovative and pragmatic thinkers James Clay Partner Tel: 01737 784500 Email: jamesclay@campbellreith.com Web: www.campbellreith.com

Ecologia

Ecologia is a multi-disciplinary, specialist contaminated land contractor that provides advice and undertakes remediation projects across the UK and Europe. We also have an established and excellent reputation for the construction and operation of in-situ remediation plant for soil and groundwater.

Giacomo Maini Managing Director Tel: +44 (0) 1795 471611 Email: g.maini@ecologiaenvironmental.com Web: www.ecologia-environmental.com

ERS

Established in 1994 and wholly employee-owned, ERS is a team of >30 engineers and scientists dedicated to providing the most appropriate and cost-effective remediation of contaminated soils and groundwater.

Trusted by property developers, house builders, contractors and consultants; projects range in value from under £5k to >£1m. ERS is Constructionline, CHAS, SMAS, PCA and Achilles registered. Services include: Remediation-oriented ground investigation; treatment of soil and groundwater for contaminants including hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, heavy metals and invasive plant species; In-situ and ex-situ remediation by physical, biological, chemical and thermal means; Waste classification and disposal via landfill or soil treatment centres Andrew Mackenzie Managing Director Tel: 0141 772 2789 Email: andew@ersremediation.com Web: www.ersremediation.com

GB Card & Partners

GB Card & Partners is a specialist environmental and civil engineering consultancy with an international reputation for the assessment and remediation of brownfield land. We have been at the forefront in setting industry standards and Government policy in both the UK and overseas, particularly in the compilation of guidance and policy documents for land quality, gas/vapour protection and development on former landfill and gassing sites. The expertise and skill that we bring to a project has enabled our clients to successfully develop award winning schemes.

Dr. Geoff Card Managing Director Dixcart House, Addlestone Road, Bourne Business Park, Addlestone, KT15 2LE, Surrey, United Kingdom Tel: 0203 795 9990 Email: gbcard@gbcardandpartners. com Web: www.gbcardandpartners.com

If you would like to appear in this magazine directory or our online directory please email sales@environment-analyst.com

development+infrastructure

28 | Directory

SPECIAL ISS

GeoStream UK Ltd GeoStream UK is the only single source provider of tried and tested remediation technologies in the UK, offering the full range of physical, chemical and biological treatment techniques for soils and groundwater and exclusive providers of Trap & Treat® (BOS 100® & BOS 200®) and the full range of injectable substrates supplied by Carus Remediation Technologies for the UK and Ireland.

Chris Evans Technical Director Tel: 01902 906205 Email: chris.evans@mcauliffegroup.co.uk Web: www.remediation.com

and economists delivering major development and infrastructure projects.

We provide trusted advice to create value from the land and buildings owned or operated by our clients. We have a regional spread of offices with a depth of technical skills throughout the UK, including specialists in contaminated land and its remediation.

Catherine Copping Associate Tel: 0118 950 0761 Email: ccopping@peterbrett.com Web: http://peterbrett.com

Ramboll John F Hunt

JFHR undertake innovative and sustainable soil and groundwater remediation projects across the UK. We work in a collaborative manner to deliver projects on time and on budget. As part of the wider JFH group, we are able to integrate other disciplines including demolition, civils and infrastructure, and asbestos consultancy.

Ben Williams Managing Director Tel: 01227 811826 Email: ben.williams@johnfhunt.co.uk Web: www.johnfhunt.co.uk/

McAuliffe Civil Engineering Ltd

McAuliffe delivers solutions in brownfield site transformation at land acquisition and build-out stages. The business offers a full turnkey service, with core capabilities including soil and groundwater remediation, haulage and materials management, ground improvement and foundation solutions, and demolition services.

Lucy Martinez Communications Manager McAuliffe House, Northcott Road, Wolverhampton, WV14 0TP Tel: 01902 354400 Email: lucy@mcauliffegroup.co.uk Web: www.mcauliffegroup.co.uk

Peter Brett Associates LLP PBA is an independent practice of engineers, planners, scientists

Ramboll is a leading engineering, design and consultancy company employing 13,000 experts. Our presence is global with especially strong representation in the Nordics, UK, North America, Continental Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific. We constantly strive to achieve inspiring and exacting solutions that make a genuine difference to our clients, end-users and society at large. Our globally recognised environment and health practice has earned a reputation for technical and scientific excellence, innovation and client service. Advances in science and technology and evolving regulatory, legal and social pressures create increasingly complex challenges for our clients. We evolve to keep pace with these changes – by adding new services, contributing to scientific advances or expanding geographically.

Greg Stoner, Marketing Communications Project Manager Europe & Africa Tel: 01225 748420 Email: gstoner@ramboll.com Web: www.ramboll.com

Sanctus Ltd

Sanctus is a specialist remediation contractor offering solutions for all issues associated with brownfield land development, including a wide range of in-situ and ex-situ soil and groundwater remediation techniques. Sanctus holds a bespoke environmental permit for the onsite treatment of hazardous waste and is also a licensed asbestos contractor.

Peter Cooke Managing Director Tel: 01453 828222 Email: pcooke@sanctusltd.co.uk Web: www.sanctusltd.com

Shawcity Ltd

Shawcity is an independent business focused on bringing the latest technology from the world’s leading manufacturers to the UK and Ireland.

We enable customers working in Environmental, Occupational Hygiene and Health & Safety applications to achieve the highest levels of monitoring performance. We have the UK’s largest hire fleet of GasClams, the world’s first in-situ borehole gas monitor which gives high frequency unmanned data readings for up to three months at a time. Manufacturer-trained and approved, our technical team also offer in-house servicing, calibration, repairs and training as well as unlimited technical support.

Elliot Rosher Product Specialist Manager Tel: 01793 780622 Email: elliot.rosher@shawcity.co.uk Web: www.shawcity.co.uk

Soil and Water Solutions Ltd

S&WS Ltd is a licensed specialist environmental and enabling works contractor providing sustainable in-situ and ex-situ remediation, bulk excavation and disposal/recycling using our own plant, on time and budget. Our in-house expertise enables delivery of bespoke brownfield solutions for treatment of contaminants including hydrocarbons, asbestos and Japanese Knotweed, nationwide.

Paul Garrett Remediation Manager Tel: 020 3667 8666 Email: paul.garrett@ soilandwatersolutions.com Web: http://soilandwatersolutions.com

Soilfix Limited

Soilfix is an award-winning remediation solutions provider to the development, industrial, commercial and public sectors. Our mission is “to understand and manage risk in the ground”. Soilfix has developed an outstanding track record for delivering innovative remedial solutions for contaminated and brownfield sites.

Steve Jackson Director Tel: 0117 982 0025 Email: steve@soilfix.co.uk Web: www.soilfix.co.uk

If you would like to appear in this magazine directory or our online directory please email sales@environment-analyst.com

Susta and d

development+infrastructure

Directory | 29

SPECIAL ISSUE:

Sustainable housing and development Waterman Infrastructure and Environment

Delivers multidisciplinary engineering solutions to the property, construction and redevelopment sectors. Services include site investigations, risk assessment, cost effective remediation and contract management, reporting to facilitate planning conditions discharge, and waste classification advice on excavated materials during development and contract negotiations.

Our experience brings strategic advice to minimise risk and costs.

Carl Slater Technical Director Pickfords Wharf, Clink Street, London, SE1 9DG Tel: 020 7928 7888 Email: carl.slater@watermangroup.com Web: www.watermangroup.com

4R Group

4R Group is a market leader in organics recycling, restoring brownfield sites across the country to the required end use with little or no cost to the land

owner. We can deliver all operational and specialist technical work with our highly experienced teams.

Dawn McGrady Sales & Marketing Co-ordinator Control House, A1 Business Park Knottingley Road, Knottingley West Yorkshire WF11 0BU Tel: 0113 232 2400 Email: info@4r-group.co.uk Web: www. 4r-group.co.uk

Flood Risk & Control Services

Rivelin Bridge Ltd

Rivelin Bridge Ltd is a civil and environmental consultancy working throughout the UK and internationally.

We provide engineering and advisory services related to flood resilience, water related development and adaption.

Our services include: project development and planning, business case development, stakeholder engagement and scheme promotion, programme and project management, tendering, training and advice. We help you create value by connecting water, people and places.

Have your organisation listed in this magazine with an enhanced directory listing With an enhanced directory listing you will receive: Your logo in our online directory (12 months) our company statement and profile in our Y online directory (12 months) our company statement and logo in the Y service providers section in all four issues of our Development & Infrastructure Magazine agazine distributed to over 20,000 engaged M environmental professionals working in the environmental and development industries

For more information and to book your entry email sales@environment-analyst.com or call +44(0)20 3637 2191

Steven Trewhella Director Tel: 075579 14100 Email: steven.trewhella@ rivelinbridge.com Web: www.rivelinbridge.com

UK Flood Barriers

Since being established in 2007, UK Flood Barriers has grown to become the UK’s leading specialist flood contractor.

It provides effective flood defence protection to members of the public, businesses, councils, main scheme contractors and the Environment Agency.

UKFB has built an enviable project portfolio delivering world class flood defence solutions which are as effective at an individual property level as they are in large scale community infrastructure projects.

Matt Keight Managing Director Tel: 01905 773 282 Email: matt.keight@ukfloodbarriers. co.uk Web: www.ukfloodbarriers.co.uk

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Upcoming events 2018 Building Sustainable Towns and Cities

Brownfield Redevelopment: North 2018

20 September 2018, London

7 November 2018, Leeds

Brownfield Risk & Remediation 2018

Flooding Resilience and Adaptation

27 September 2018, London

5 December 2018, London

Brownfield Briefing Awards 2018

Brownfield Land Scotland 2019

27 September 2018, London

February 2019, Edinburgh

Brownfield Land Wales 2018 24 October 2018, Cardiff

Further events to be announced shortly events.environment-analyst.com

For more information visit www.events.environment-analyst.com

Join us at the industry’s event of the year 27 September, London The fourteenth annual Brownfield Briefing Awards return to London on Thursday 27 September. Acknowledged as one of the highest industry accolades that a company can receive, the awards recognise technical and conceptual excellence in projects that have been underway over a specified 12 month time period, and are judged by an expert panel consisting of industry specialists across a range of disciplines.

Book your table at the Awards Gala Dinner Winners in each category will be presented with a prestigious Brownfield Briefing Award at the Awards Gala Dinner, which takes place on 27 September 2018 at the Tower Hotel London.

Even if you are not submitting an entry, you can still attend this fabulous event. You will enjoy a three-course dinner and an evening of quality entertainment.

So whether you want to network with Award winners, book places for your clients, or even reward your team for a year of hard work, the Brownfield Briefing Awards Dinner is an event not to be missed!

To book your table at the Brownfield Briefing Awards Gala Dinner visit: brownfieldbriefing.com/BB-Awards-2018 or email sales@environment-analyst.com