The meeting notes from the second Joint Industry Working Group meeting held on May 29th 2012 have now been finalised and uploaded onto the dedicated project website www.claire.co.uk/asbestos and can also be downloaded directly here>>.   More details can be found from the 'read more' tab. 

 

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IMaHg is a SNOWMAN 3rd call project which aims at providing enhanced knowledge in mercury fate and transport to improve management of mercury contaminated land.  In the context of this project, the IMaHg team - the BRGM (French Geological Survey), SGI (Swedish Geological Institute), CL:AIRE (Contaminated Land: Application in Real Environments, UK) and SCK-CEN (Belgian Nuclear Research Centre) - has the pleasure to launch a European survey on Hg contaminated land management.  The IMaHg survey targets a wide range of contaminated land practitioners, including service providers (contractors, consultants, research institutes), problem owners and regulators, who wish to share their experience in Hg contaminated land management.  The downloadable survey is to be e-mailed back to the project team at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  as described within the document.  Thanking you in advance for participating in our survey and for completing the IMaHg Survey here>>> by the 15th of September 2012.  The results of the consultation will be sent to each participant.

The Technology Strategy Board, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are to invest up to £15m in feasibility projects, collaborative research and development and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) to stimulate innovation in the civil nuclear power sector and to strengthen its UK supply chain.  This funding competition will support the development of innovative technologies that can be used in the assessment, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance, waste management and decommissioning of nuclear plant in a safe, economic and sustainable manner. This competition opened on 2 July 2012. The deadline for registration is noon 29 August 2012. The deadline for applications is noon 5 September, 2012. Full details can be found here>>

The University of Cambridge would like to invite you to participate in a survey study of sustainable remediation. The study aims at better understanding decision making processes in the remediation of contaminated soil, groundwater, and sediment. This survey is being sent to contaminated site owners, regulators, consultants, contractors, etc. in the United States, the United Kingdom and China. Participation in the survey is voluntary.

In exchange for your participation, we will provide you with a summary of the survey results. The survey result summary will shed light on the viewpoints of various stakeholders regarding the adoption of sustainability in remediation practices, thus enabling participants to learn how their responses compare to others. If you wish us to send you the aggregated results of the survey, please provide your contact information at the end of the questionnaire.

All data will be kept strictly confidential. Your responses will not be accessed by a third party. Our report and analysis will be based only on anonymous aggregated results. The survey should take about 15~20 minutes to complete. If you have any questions, please contact the researcher This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or the supervisor This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . We hope you will participate in our survey and look forward to sending you a copy of the survey results. Please complete the survey online by the end of September 2012 at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/393QPJZ.

On June 20th CL:AIRE Members enjoyed a networking event at the House of Commons which was well attended by geo-environmental practitioners and problem holders alike.  Attendees heard addresses from Richard Benyon MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Defra in addition to the event sponsor Stephen Mosley MP, Richard Froggatt the CL:AIRE Chairman and Jane Garrett, CL:AIRE’s CEO.    

CL:AIRE’s Membership Scheme has now attracted over 80 member organisations and since last reporting we are delighted to announce AkzoNobel as a new CL:AIRE Corporate Member, with Rodgers Leask Environmental Ltd; TK Lynskey Excavations Ltd; Stephenson Harwood; CRB Environmental Ltd; the Department of Environment Northern Ireland; Solutions 4 Land; and I&H Brown joining as CL:AIRE Technical Members.

CL:AIRE would like to sincerely thank all of these companies for their support of CL:AIRE and its ongoing endeavours.  All CL:AIRE Members are now being featured on the CL:AIRE homepage: www.claire.co.uk.  Full details on how to sign up to the CL:AIRE Membership Scheme as Technical or Corporate Members are provided here>>.  Technical Membership is now also open to public sector organisations.

The second meeting of the JIWG on the development of a Code of Practice, Practitioners’ Guide to Asbestos in Soil and Construction & Demolition Wastes meeting was held on 29th May 2012. The draft meeting notes are currently being reviewed by attendees.  Once finalised, they will be made available for download from the CL:AIRE website: www.claire.co.uk/asbestos and circulated by all the groups that attend the JIWG.

The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss the draft content and scope of the code of practice and programme. Feedback from all the representatives attending the meeting is now being collated into a finalised scope and programme which will be uploaded shortly on the dedicated website area.  Update and next steps are summarised following the 'read more' tab.

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A free smartphone app has been launched by the British Geological Survey and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology which allows information on the local soils of Great Britain to be accessed.  ‘mySoil’ is for anyone with an interest in the soil of Britain; including gardeners and vegetable growers, allotment owners, farmers and agricultural specialists, school and college students, environmentalists and land-use planners.  It allows users to view a map of the soil parent material (the underlying geological material) in your local area, retrieve descriptions about the soil depth, texture, pH and organic matter content, and explore vegetation habitat data across Britain.  More information is available from BGS here>>.

NICOLE has announced the winners of its 2012 Technology Award on “Innovative Solutions for Soil Monitoring”, which was launched with the aim to stimulate engineers and scientists to submit technical innovations that can contribute to an improved practice for contaminated land monitoring and verification of remediation performance. The three winning entries received their prizes on 14 June 2012 at NICOLE’s 2012 June workshop in Baden-Baden, Germany.  Entries were judged by a NICOLE jury based on their innovation, potential contribution to cost savings, technical applicability and plans for communication and market availability.  Further details on the winning technologies are provided from the ‘read more’ tab.

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CL:AIRE is pleased to report that the Remediation Technologies eLearning Suite 2012, has enjoyed a successful first three months since being released to the industry. The learning suite is fully interactive and provides training on key aspects of undertaking options appraisals and selecting, designing, implementing and verifying different remediation technologies.  The suite has been developed in association with the Environment Agency and leading industry experts and is aimed at foundation and intermediate level.

The 10 courses comprise the following subjects:
Options Appraisal, Monitored Natural Attenuation, Permeable Reactive Barriers, Air Sparging/Soil Vapour Extraction, Ex-situ Bioremediation, Chemical Oxidation, Stabilisation/Solidifcation, In-situ Bioremediation, Soil Washing, In-situ and Ex-situ Thermal Desorption.

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The British Consulate General in São Paulo and UK Trade & Investment are supporting the VIII International Seminar of Remediation and Redevelopment of Contaminated Sites Conference taking place in São Paulo, Brazil, in late October.  The event organisers would like our help to promote the event and most important of all invite UK companies to submit their abstracts by 30th June 2012.  Submissions should not exceed one A4 page and full instructions are provided here>>.