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Common Forum Newsletter nr. 51 - December 21th, 2012 |
by Dr. D. Darmendrail |
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Summary
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Dear Colleagues,
Thanks to our Basque country colleague for hosting the last CF meeting and having given the occasion of contributing to the International workshop on Land Protection.
The outcomes of the international workshop are now available on the IHOBE website.
Since Bilbao, we finalized the CF position paper on the AMEC report on baseline report content and it was distributed to EC representatives.
We will prepare a note on the inventories / registers key issues for contributing to the debate on the revision on the CIS015 indicator on “progress on management of contaminated sites”.
Looking forward to seeing you in Bratislava (29–31 May 2013).
Kind regards
Dominique
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COMMON FORUM MEETING IN BILBAO, SPAIN
Autumn 2012 Common Forum meeting
was held
in
Bilbao (Spain - Basque Country) from 23 to 24th of October.
 Bilbao meeting was held back to back to International Event on Land Protection in the Basque Country. It
was attended by 27 participants.
The final agenda and the presentations are now available on our website. The meeting report is under preparation and will be sent per email in the upcoming weeks.
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COMMON FORUM MEMBERS & SPECIAL GUEST TURNOVER
Recent changes of national representations within the Common Forum
See also: Common Forum Members List
Last registered Special Guest of Common Forum
- July 2012. Welcome Carmela Centeno.
UNIDO
See also: Common Forum Special Guest List
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NEWS FROM COMMON FORUM COUNTRIES
Ireland Brownfield Network
www.irelandbrownfieldnetwork.com
 The Ireland Brownfield Network was established in February 2012 by a collective of leading brownfield practitioners operating in various professions throughout Ireland.
The Network aims to encourage constructive dialogue and interaction amongst all those involved in the redevelopment of brownfield land in the island of Ireland. In doing so, the collective learning experiences, best practices and effective strategies can be shared to the betterment of brownfield redevelopment in Ireland.
The Network is currently run and organised by 9 interim committee volunteers from various professions involved with brownfield redevelopment. The Network is free to join and open to all.
Ireland Framework for the Management of Contaminated land and groundwater at EPA licensed facilities
www.epa.ie/downloads/consultation/contaminated
 Ireland Environmental Protection Agency recently published technical guidance for dealing with contaminated land in relation to EPA licensed sites (e.g. waste and IPPC sites).
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NEWS FROM EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Risk Assessment Methodologies of Soil Threats in Europe
Status and options for harmonization for risks by erosion, compaction, salinization, organic matter decline and landslides
JRC Scientific and Policy Reports
Christy van Beek and Gergely Toth (eds) 2012
JRC 55496 -
EUR 24097 EN -
ISBN 978-92-79-14291-8 -
ISSN 1018-5593
doi: 10.2788/47096
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ESDB_Archive/
eusoils_docs/Other/EUR24097.pdf
 "Risk Assessment Methodologies of Soil Threats in Europe", a report which presents the results of the RAMSOIL project is published. The general objective of the RAMSOIL project was to provide scientific guidelines on possibilities for EU wide parameter harmonization based on detailed information on current risk assessment methodologies of soilthreats encountered wihtin EU Member States. In RAMSOIL current risk assessments methodologies used in the EU are collected and evaluated. The results are summarized in this book.
Further information on the RAMSOIL project is available from www.ramsoil.eu.
Soil of the Year 2012 - Lowland Peat Soil
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Awareness/metadata.cfm?id=39
 The German Soil Science Society and the Federal Soil Association of Germany initiated the action "Soil of the year" in 2004. In the international classification World of Reference Base (WRB) peat soils are classified as Histosols. Peat soils contain more than 30% organic material. They show a typical dark-brown to black color.
The subsoils of peats can consist of sand, silt, loam, and clay or of special, in lakes deposited materials, the mud. Depending on their parent material, mud can look white (lime mud), olive green (liver mud from algae) or dark brown (clay mud).
EU-funded soil related projects
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/projects/Eufunded/Eufunded.html
Interesting inventory: a list of 35 soil-relevant project which have been financed by the 6th and 7th Framework Programme for Research during the last decade. The list includes links to the project websites and the major deliverables of those projects. Other types of Projects (LIFE+, econtentPlus, ...) are alsco inculded.
Managing Living Soil and World Soil Day
5-7 December 2012, Rome, Italy
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
InternationalCooperation/GSP/index.html#events
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is organizing a technical workshop in the framework of the Global Soil Partnership on: "Managing Living Soils", 5-7 December 2012, Rome, Italy. FAO, with the support of the European Commission, launched the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) in FAO headquarters in September 2011 to raise awareness of decision makers on the vital role of soil resources for achieving food security, adapting to and mitigating climate change and guaranteeing provision of environmental services. The Vision of the GSP is to improve global governance of the limited soil resources of the planet in order to guarantee healthy and productive soils for a foof secure world, as well as sustain other essential ecosystem services. FAO Proposal to observe World Soil Day annually on 5 December.
EIONET Workshop on Soil
10-12 December 2012, Ispra, Italy
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/data/eionet/Workshop2012.html
This important workshop, organized by JRC (ISPRA, 10-12 December 2012), will discuss the soil information and data flow between the interested parties and will deal with the following issues: it will reflect on the last two data collection exercises held in 2010 (soil organic carbon / soil erosion) and 2011 (contaminated sites); it will discuss how new soil data requirements specified by DG ENV and EEA can be matched with contributions from EIONET NRCs for Soil, and it will discuss and outline the road ahead.
Source: Joint Research Center -
Soil Action News Letter:
- N°41 (May 2012)
- N°43 (July 2012)
- N°47 (November 2012)
LIFE projects lead the way in sustainable soil management
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/features/2012/soil_managmt.htm
 Participants at the recent United Nations 'Rio+20 Earth Summit' underscored the importance of soil conservation as an essential component of sustainable development, and LIFE projects continue to be at the forefront of demonstrating cost effective approaches to tackling Europe's soil management challenges.
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NEWS FROM SuRF ANZ
Our Role in Developing Sustainable Land and Groundwater
Contaminant Remediation Practice
www.surfanz.com.au/pdfs/Progress%20Report.pdf
 The report on SuRF ANZ activities for the quarter July to September 2012 is now on the website.
Since official formation of SuRF ANZ in March 2012 there have been over 300 remediation practitioners and stakeholders join the Forum via our website www.surfanz.com.au. SuRF ANZ aim to be an at-ease but high quality practice forum for the advancement of sustainable remediation (SR) which will provide you with useful information and will establish dialogues with stakeholders including industry and regulators. The Forum Committee (steering group) appointed in March meets quarterly to implement the work programme identified by members and to consider SR developments in our industry both in ANZ and internationally. SuRF ANZ is grateful to ALGA for its continued recognition and secretariat support of SuRF ANZ.
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NEWS FROM SNOWMAN
4th SNOWMAN call for research proposals
Social and economic knowledge for
sustainable soil management
Open 18 September 2012 – Closed 17 december 2012
http://www.snowmannetwork.com/main.asp?id=42
The SNOWMAN network is a transnational group of research funding organizations and administrations in the field of soil and groundwater in Europe. The SNOWMAN network wants to develop and share knowledge for the sustainable use of soil and groundwater. For the development of knowledge we have a research programme that we execute by organizing calls for projects. Already three calls have been launched successfully. More information on the history and accomplishments of the SNOWMAN group and the finalised and ongoing projects can be found on the website. The SNOWMAN network now announces its 4th call.
The call topics
The research questions for the 4th call are derived from the SNOWMAN Research Programme and from the inputs and priorities of the funders who decided to join their efforts and budgets to organise this transnational call. All SNOWMAN partners believe soil quality management should change from a specific sectoral policy and management issue into an integrated factor in social and economic decision processes. There is lack of knowledge in terms on how society understands, perceives and values soils. Social and economic scientific issues also have to be explored alongside the natural science areas.
The focus of the 4th call will therefore be on the relationship between the natural scientific and the social and economic aspects of soil by integrating, natural social and economic science perspectives on soil research. Attention will thus be drawn to the coupled interactions between economic (profit), ecologic (planet) and social (people) systems.
Results questionnaire on knowledge dissemination
webpage Knowledge dissemination
Questionnaire on knowledge dissemination in on-going SNOWMAN projects 2012.
In the spring of 2012 the SNOWMAN network sent out a questionnaire to the project leaders of the on-going SNOWMAN projects. The purpose was to get an overview of the activities as well as to find good examples of activities that can be useful to other projects and in future calls.
In short, two of the projects (IBRAC and INSPECT) report that they have set up project web-sites and one has been using the SNOWMAN organizations web pages (IMaHg) for posting information and results. 10 peer reviewed publications are reported (8 within INSPECT and 2 within REJUVENATE 2, some in preparation). More than 30 oral or poster presentations have been given at national and international conferences or workshops. Several of the projects have participated in stakeholder meetings, or have consulted the stakeholders by asking them for their specific interests and needs.
Source: SnowmanNetwork Newsletter - June 2012
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NEWS FROM NICOLE
NICOLE 2012 Sustainable Remediation Working Group Report (2012)
www.nicole.org/documents/DocumentList.aspx?l=7&w=n
In September 2010, NICOLE's Sustainable Remediation Work Group (SRWG) published a Road Map to Sustainable Remediation, which was the primary deliverable of a two-year project. These chapters provide the background context and the full technical details for this project.
Source: US-EPA - TechDirect June 1, 2012
Winners NICOLE Technology Award 2012
“Innovative solutions for soil monitoring”
www.nicole.org
NICOLE launched its 2012 Technology Award on “Innovative Solutions for Soil Monitoring” with the aim stimulating 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 spring 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.
The 2012 Award was won by a project funded by the French Agency of Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) called Pollution Investigation by Trees (PIT). PIT is an International research project led by Environment International with HPC Envirotec, Sévêque Environnement, Cabinet Conseil Blondel, Exponent and Triassic Technology. Trees act as proxy-recorders of their current and past environmental exposures. These phytoforensic methods allow to delineate and map plumes, as well as to age date past pollution events. The project develops the use of phytoscreening and dendrochemical applications at polluted sites.
Second prize was awarded to the company Berghof (Tübingen, Germany) and the University of Stuttgart (VEGAS) in Germany for the Thermo-Flowmeter System. This is designed to detect vertical flow in ground water observation wells and to measure profiles of the hydraulic conductivity in aquifers.
The third prize was awarded to VITO and partners for a site and receptor specific risk management approach for groundwater pollution, called the Contaminant Mass Flux (CMF) approach. This uses in situ measurements of contaminant mass flux using the recently developed Passive Flux Meter technology.
NICOLE News 2012
www.nicole.org/documents/DocumentList.aspx?l=8&w=n
 NICOLE News 2012 is now posted.
Contents: Sustainable groundwater; EU nano-remediation project; Update: perfluorinated substances; Brussels meeting December 2012 and other events; AquaConSoil 2013; Perspectives from USA and China; The GREENLAND project; NICOLE Rotterdam workshop; Common Forum developments; NICOLE Baden Baden workshop; The future of bioremediation; ISG and SPG updates; How elemental mercury spreads; NICOLE Working Group updates; NICOLE and International Soil Standards; Taking NICOLE forward; 2012 NICOLE Technology Award.
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NEWS FROM CL:AIRE
Cluster Guide published
http://claire.createsend1.com/t/r-l-hthyikk-jtkikjni-b/
Contact point:
CL:AIRE is delighted to announce that the eagerly awaited Cluster Guide is now available to download free of charge from the CL:AIRE website. The Cluster methodology is designed to offer an alternative way of developing and remediating multiple sites that are located in relatively close proximity. It provides a different strategy to traditional standalone projects and is seen as a more economical and sustainable approach. The guide identifies the key planning considerations required to set up a Cluster and should not be seen as a step-by-step guide to establishing and operating such a project.
Asbestos in Soil - Joint Industry Working Group
http://claire.createsend1.com/t/r-l-hthyikk-jtkikjni-e/
http://claire.createsend1.com/t/r-l-ulktttl-jtkikjni-m/
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 has been reviewed by attendees. The meeting notes from the second Joint Industry Working Group meeting held on September 26th 2012 have now been finalised and uploaded onto the dedicated project website www.claire.co.uk/asbestos and can also be downloaded.
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.
Source: CL:AIRE eAlert June and November 2012
State of the market report 2012
CL:AIRE Member report
Abridged non Member version
www.claire.co.uk/index.php?
option=com_phocadownload&view=file&id=302:
Other-CLAIRE-Documents&Itemid=61
 CL:AIRE published recently a Contaminated Land State of the Market report, with statistics and context of the CL business in the UK. An abridged version its first Contaminated Land 'State of the Market Report' is now freely available to all. The report will published annually to provide an ongoing benchmark.
Source: CL:AIRE eAlert October 2012
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EUGRIS CORNER
New documents on EUGRIS, the platform for European contaminated soil and water information. Resources, events projects and news items added on EUGRIS can be viewed at: www.eugris.info/whatsnew.asp. Then select the appropriate month and year for the updates in which you are interested. However, here is a selection of new additions to EUGRIS prepared by Paul Bardos (r3 Environmental Technology Ltd) for COMMON FORUM members.
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NEWS FROM GEPP
Global Environmental Policy Programme (GEPP) Executive Summer School on Global Environmental Policy from 1st to 13th September 2013
Organised by the University of Geneva, in partnership with UNEP
More information about GEPP can be consulted at:
www.unige.ch/gepp/ess
 In the unique International Geneva setting, the Executive Summer School provides a special opportunity for participants from both the public and the private sectors to enlarge their competences in order to address complex environmental issues. Beyond enlarging the knowledge base of each participant, the modules of this transdisciplinary programme bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and concrete decision-making, problem-solving and negotiation skills.
The GEPP Executive Summer School aims to bring together not more than 25 selected participants with diverse origins and professional backgrounds, including decision makers from the public and private sectors, and non-governmental organisations.
The closing date for applications is 31st March 2013.
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DOCUMENTS OF INTEREST
Soil: it's in our hands
L. Montanarella -
Secretary, European Soil Buraeu Network -
Joint Research Center, European Commission
International Innovation - October 2012 - Pages 56-57
www.research-europe.com/magazine/REGIONAL/EF15/index.html
 Effective soil management is at the crux of sustainable developement, and the extensive attention it received at this year's Rio+20 conference has furtherunderlined this.
In an interview exclusive for Internation Innovation, Luca Montanarella highligts the ESBN's role in operating the European Soil Data Centre - the cornerstone for European soil data and information.
More information on:
Joint Research Center - IES website
Environmental Liability in Europe
One Target - Too Many Options
Position Paper - Environment Liability 2012
Justice & Environment - European Network of Environmental Law Organisations
Dvoakova 13, 602 00, Brno, CZ
t/f
36 1 3228462 / 36 1 4130300
http://justiceandenvironment.org/_files/file/
2012/2012%20ELD%20position%20paper%281%29.pdf
With the Environmental Liability Directive1 (ELD) the EU tried to establish a common liability framework for the prevention and remediation of damage to animals, plants, natural habitats water resources and soil damages. ELD entered into force on 30th April 2004 but transposition of ELD was not completed before July 2010. Little experience on ELD practice in EU member states is available yet and it is therefore valuable to figure out particular shortcomings of ELD transposition and application in national practice.
Thus Justice and Environment (J&E) conducted legal analyses focusing on applied liability systems in member states’ practice to bring more clarity on the interaction of ELD legislation with other liability regimes and to demonstrate on the other hand value and weaknesses of all these systems. Furthermore J&E collected ELD and national liability cases to give an oversight on the national practice in environmental liability cases2.
Gasoline ether oxygenate occurrence in Europe, and a review of their fate and transport characteristics in the environment
CONCAWE report (4/12)
www.concawe.org/content/default.asp?PageID=572
 This report presents newly collated data on the production capacities and use of MTBE, ETBE, TAME, DIPE and TBA in 30 countries (27 EU countries and Croatia, Norway and Switzerland) to inform continued and effective environmental management practices for GEO by CONCAWE members. The report comprises data on gasoline use in Europe that were provided by CONCAWE and obtained from the European Commission. Furthermore Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) provided detailed analytical data (more than 1,200 sampling campaigns) on the GEO composition of gasoline in European countries in the period 2000-2010.
Ether oxygenates are blended into certain gasoline (petrol) formulations to improve combustion efficiency and to increase the octane rating. In this report the term gasoline ether oxygenates (GEO) refers collectively to methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE), tertiary amyl methyl ether (TAME), di-isopropyl ether (DIPE), tertiary amyl ethyl ether (TAEE), tertiary hexyl methyl ether (THxME), and tertiary hexyl ethyl ether (THxEE), as well as the associated tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA).
Another major aspect of this report is the investigation of GEO distribution in groundwater, drinking water, surface water, runoff water, precipitation (rain/snow) and air in the European environment. Apart from the general sources of literature for the study, local environmental authorities and institutes in the 30 European countries have been contacted for additional information.
Finally, a review of the international literature on GEO natural attenuation processes was undertaken with a focus on international reports and peer-reviewed scientific publications to give an overview on the known fate, transport and degradation mechanisms of GEO in the subsurface, to inform risk-management strategies that may rely on natural attenuation processes.
New Emerging Contaminants Website
US EPA
www.epa.gov/fedfac/documents/emerging_contaminants.htm
The U.S. EPA Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office has developed a new Emerging Contaminants site with updated versions of existing technical and emerging contaminant fact sheets and a new fact sheet for Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).
Source: US EPA - TechDirect, July 1, 2012
Experiences and status for ecological risk assessment of contaminated sites in the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK
Environmental project no. 1422, 2012
www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2012/05/978-87-92903-12-9.pdf
 In Denmark, approximately 27,000 sites were registered as contaminated or
potentially contaminated in 2010. A new smaller survey in one of the regions of Denmark, a comparison between the location of contaminated sites and the location of protected nature areas, showed that approximately 10% of the contaminated sites were located on areas protected by the EU Habitat Directive or by national legislation.
Nevertheless, till date Denmark has not (systematically) been assessing risk to terrestrial habitats and fresh water recipients. This is a logical consequence of the Danish Soil Act, which specifically lists the primary targets of protection from contaminated soil, as human safety and drinking water. It is, however, possible that the Water Frame Directive and the Habitat Directive in EU may call for a change of the Danish Soil Act in order to open up for assessments and remediation triggered by ecology or water quality of the recipients.
To ensure that decisions are taken on the best possible foundation, the Danish EPA and policy makers are interested in experiences from other comparable countries. In this context, information and experience from four selected countries, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands and England, has been compiled. The compilation of information has been through written material, i.e. reports, official web pages etc., and a targeted interview with selected persons within the relevant Ministries or Agencies in the selected countries. The interviews were conducted in the period from April to September 2009.
RemS User Guide: Remediation Strategy for Soil and Groundwater Pollution RemS Decision Support Tool (2011)
Denmark
www.regionh.dk/NR/rdonlyres/6C6CCE88-A017-465F-
B97C-C6E545CD6918/0/RemS_2_0_UserGuideandappendices.pdf
This decision support tool published by the Environment Department of Denmark, puts together the expectations of remediation efficiency, environmental impacts, costs and time, and can be used to support the choice and combination of remediation techniques to reduce soil and groundwater contamination at a given location.
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BOOKS, ARTICLES & ABSTRACT PROCEEDINGS OF INTEREST
State of the art of contaminated site management in The Netherlands: Policy
framework and risk assessment tools
F.A. Swartjes, M. Rutgers, J.P.A. Lijzen, P.J.C.M. Janssen, P.F. Otte, A. Wintersen, E. Brand, L. Posthuma
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.02.078
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
American Geophysical Union’s 45th annual Fall Meeting Session H024: "Uncertainty Quantification and Parameter Estimation, Impacts on Risk and Decision Making"
December 3-7, 2012 - San Francisco, CA, United-States of America
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2012/
FAO technical Workshop on "Managing Living Soil"
December 5-7, 2012 - Rome, Italy
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
InternationalCooperation/GSP/index.html#events
EIONET Workshop on Soil
December 10-12, 2012 - Ispra, Italy
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/data/eionet/Workshop2012.html
Seventh International Conference on Remediation of Contaminated Sediments
February 4-7, 2013 - Dallas, TE, United-States of America
http://conferences.battelle.org/sediments/
Annual West Coast Conference
23rd Annual International Conference on Soil, Water, Energy, and Air
March 18-21, 2013 - San Diego, CA, United-States of America
www.AEHSFoundation.org
inter'Sol 2013
March 26-28, 2013 - Lyon, France
www.intersol.fr
AquaConSoil 2013
12th International UFZ-Deltares Conference on Groundwater-Soil-Systems and Water Resource Management
April 16-19, 2013 - Barcelona, Spain
www.aquaconsoil.org
National Brownfields Conference
May 15-17, 2013 - Atlanta, GA, United-States of America
www.brownfieldsconference.org
7th International Workshop on Chemical Bioavailability
November 4-7, 2013 - Nottingham, United-Kingdom
www.bgs.ac.uk/news/events/bioavailabilityWorkshop
See all annoucements on Common Forum website
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