Despite the many complexities surrounding land contamination many developers often “jump the gun” and build first asking questions later, this leads to much work being redone wasting both time and money.
Discovery CE offers professional and practical solutions for all sized projects with a good track record of successful land remediation and validation solutions. Adhering to the Eurocode 7 framework, we directly work with our clients allowing us to inform all the necessary requirements and issues in monitoring and validation upfront. As a result we are able to design a better tailored solution for the project.
Our job in Smethwick started off like any other, just another bit of land for housing. After meeting with our client we were provided prior Phase 1 and Phase 2 Geo-Environmental Asessement produced by another consultant, these reports were considered to define the conceptual modelling and to broadly characterise the contaminant status. Sadly, it didn’t tell us a lot about the site, the number of tests and samples tested were insufficient to allow for a detailed remediation strategy to be developed.
This was acknowledged by the Environment Agency and Local Authority with additional works necessary; “Additional Gas monitoring, Groundwater sampling and testing, permeability testing and a Detailed Quantitative Risk Assessment”. After reviewing these previous investigations this formed the basis of planning and execution of additional ground investigation, targeting areas to fill gaps (rather than digging the whole place up or starting a new).
We found several contaminants exceeding their relevant Human Health Screening values…However, the presence of buildings and hardstanding ground will break any human exposure pathway, we recommended a suitably thick clean cover to be used for gardens and landscaping. DCE discussed some possible solutions for treating hydrocarbon impacted soils and recommended some brilliant specialists to provide the necessary work needed for installations, removal and treatment.
Once the plan was green lit we supervised the installations and checked that they fit the regulatory requirements.
Finally in it’s final stages, our last role was the final validation work to fit the requirements for the regulators to sign off!
