The presence of land contamination from current & past site activities and underlying natural geology has the potential to lead to significant impacts upon human health, water resources and the wider environment. The planning process, the Part 2A regime and acquisition/ownership of potentially contaminated land all require that unacceptable risks are dealt with appropriately.
Risk assessment provides a robust means to establish the significance of contamination identified by Phase I and Phase II investigations. Outputs from our generic and detailed risk assessments (including quantitative modelling) are used to help decide the next steps for a project and in remedial design work to establish soil, water and vapour remedial targets for active intervention or the need for other risk management strategies such as isolation, source reduction and cover systems.
We specialise in technical human health, VOC vapour and groundwater / surface water risk assessments and have developed a number of our own tools and models to supplement available UK guidance and models.
Regulatory Frameworks
Our risk assessments are completed under the umbrella frameworks provided by the online uk.gov ‘Land Contamination: Risk Management’ (LCRM) guidance, R&D66 & Part 2A regime. Our human health assessments are undertaken using the CLEA/S4UL/C4SL methodologies with ground gas risk assessment following BS845 guidance. Our detailed controlled water assessments are undertaken using the 2006 Environment Agency Remedial Target Methodology (RTM). Where appropriate, we utilise current UK reference human health assessment criteria (GAC, SGV, C4SL, S4UL) and additional guidance for vapour and gas risks drawn from British Standards, CIRIA, BRE and CIEH publications.
We have also developed a range of in-house assessment tools, including our CIRIA C716/C748 ‘T00lkit’ to help assess the efficacy of gas resistant membranes when used for VOC protection.
Discussions with the regulators form a key part of the risk assessment process and we are experienced in liaising with local authorities, the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and SEPA to ensure that our risk assessments are appropriate for the site and acceptable to the regulators.
Our pragmatic and experienced approach to risk assessment, based on the many years of consulting, remediation contracting and regulation experience of our staff, ensures that our final assessments and remedial targets reflect the practicalities of developing, managing and remediating brownfield land.
We also provide bespoke human health assessments for airborne vapours and dusts that could be released during remediation and construction works to address potential health risks to residents and workers on adjacent land. This allows generation of robust airborne vapour and dust thresholds for monitoring undertaken during site works. These risk assessment works are usually undertaken with close liaison with local authorities and other relevant regulators.
We have had some of our independent work on understanding the CLEA model published by SoBRA: sobra.org.uk/resources/other-publications/clea-info-map/
To discuss your risk assessment requirements, please contact contact Chris Dainton at the Derbyshire Office