Worms Eye - Newsletter

Cannon House
52 Bank Parade
Burnley, Lancashire
BB11 1TS

Tel: 01282 - 414649 / 458410
Fax: 01282 - 721916
Email:

	CONTAMINATION CATASTROPHE
	Re-developing Brownfield sites is becoming much more difficult.
BACKGROUND
	Our construction industry has become great because of its ‘can do’ attitude. A problem is rapidly identified, solved in the quickest or most cost effective way, and the job moves on. Unfortunately the contaminated land regulations mean that an investigation cannot be dealt with in that way, but has to be carried out more like a PhD thesis (open ended/ forever questioning/ lots of consultation/ re-invent the wheel/ complex analysis/ everything proved and validated). Furthermore, the rules are forever changing, (the EA calls their guide books "living documents") so, what satisfied last month might not do so now. You must satisfy these requirements otherwise you will not get NHBC/ planning conditions/ building regulations approval and you will not be able to sell or mortgage your building.
THE PROCEDURE
	The procedure is a step-by-step approach with consultation at every stage. You can appreciate that it can easily be six months or more before a start can be made on anything.
WORMS EYE PRICING AND PERFORMANCE
	Apart from the Desk Study (Phase I or Site Assessment), it is impossible for us to give you a quotation for the works as we do not know what will be involved. Even after the main SI (Phase II or Intrusive Report) has been completed, the regulators frequently ask for more. Sometimes things are asked for which are beyond our competence, such as a detailed quantitative risk assessment (DQRA) and we need to outsource this at extra cost. At Worms Eye we are re-training ourselves to meet these regulations at the same time as encountering an unprecedented volume of work. In addition, our partner contaminated soil laboratories are also overwhelmed with work and dealing with (different) new regulations such as MCERTS. Tests are taking over 15 working days (almost four weeks from drilling the borehole to receiving the results back) and quicker turnaround is not being offered. These are the reasons for the slow delivery of our reports and it is difficult to see any signs of improvement.
VALIDATION
	Before receiving final approval, you have to prove you have remediated the site. This requires photographs of progress, haulage tickets on/off site, proof that imported material is clean, sign off by the Building Inspector for things like gas membranes, third party inspection of cover layers, possibly final boreholes/trial holes and laboratory tests to prove all is satisfactory. We can assist in this but the staff on site must keep good records and be primarily responsible.
Disposal of Contaminated Soil
	The recent EU landfill directive means that, before unwanted excavated material can be removed from site, it will need a WAC (waste acceptance criteria) test at a cost of about £300 each, and this takes approximately four weeks. If the material is then classed as hazardous, there are limited disposal options (long distance transport and very high tip charges). On site remediation by specialist contractors is likely to be required (slow/expensive).
SUMMARY
	Allow PLENTY OF TIME (many months) to get contamination issues resolved. READ PLANNING CONDITIONS IMMEDIATELY. As soon as you have our report SUBMIT WITHOUT DELAY to the regulators. Appoint a PERSON TO KEEP TRACK of dealings with REGULATORS. Keep DETAILED SITE RECORDS diary, photographs, haulage tickets, waste disposal tickets etc. Make sure that you IMPORT CLEAN MATERIAL only and have tickets to prove it. Keep careful track of any earthworks, DO NOT MIX CONTAMINATED WITH CLEAN. Before you start, make sure that your WALLET IS VERY FULL. Graham Cannon, 1 January 2005