Next CF meeting, Dublin, March 2009

ICCL-CF meeting, Helsinki, Sept. 2009

CLEA News

Eugris corner

The next Common Forum meeting will be held in Dublin, Dublin Castle (Ireland), the 26th and 27th of March, 2009.

Please find thereafter all the necessary information for your venue (PDF file - 88 KB) to Dublin.

For those who have not confirmed their participation (please continue to inform us when your decision is taken) but are intending to attend, please note that the deadline for pre-reservation of rooms at the Jurys Inn Christchurch is now exceeded. You will have to make your own accomodation booking using the pre-booking form (DOC file - 69 KB).

The drafted proposal of agenda for this meeting is the following:

Session 1 - News and views from the Common Forum (tour de table)

Session 2 - Historical Mines - National Risk Assessment - The Irish Experience & other Countries experiences with Implementation of Mining Waste Directive

Session 3 - Main issuesof the discussion on Soil draft directive

Session 4 - Next steps : Research, update of the synthesis of the legal frameworks on contaminated soil management

Please do not hesitate to comment, propose modifications and volunteer for presentations.

For the Autumn meeting, It is planned to be a coupled ICCL-CF meeting as every two years.

As decided in Stockholm in 2007, it will be held in Helsinki (Finland) on the 16 & 17 of September, 2009 and will be followed by a "one day meeting" of the Common Forum. More information on this important international meeting will come soon. The organising team (Anna-Maija Pajukallio, Jussi Reinikainen and I) is looking forward to seeing you there.

Please note that we are still looking for the next host country for the 10th ICCL meeting (tentatively in year 2011).

More info on ICCL web site.

CLEA EXTERNAL BRIEFING NOTE

The Environment Agency has recently published its revised Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment technical guidance (commonly known as CLEA) after a period of consultation. The new guidance will help in the assessment of potential risks to human health from long-term exposure to soil contamination.

What does the final guidance contain?
Our revised final CLEA guidance replaces the versions released in August 2008 after a 3-month period of evaluation. The updated guidance includes:

• ‘Human health toxicological assessment of contaminants in soil’ (the TOX Guidance Report.
• ‘Updated technical background to the CLEA model’ (the CLEA Report), -  which replaces CLR10 ‘The Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) model: technical basis and algorithms’.
• ‘A review of body weight and height data used within the Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment model (CLEA)’.
• CLEA Software Version 1.04 and ‘CLEA Software (Version 1.04) Handbook’,, that assessors can use to help estimate exposure and assess risks. We have removed the beta status of the software.

What has been changed as a result of the consultation?
You can find a summary of the changes we have made to the CLEA technical guidance and software on our website at www.environment-agency.gov.uk/clea.

What other organisations have been involved?
We support Defra’s decisions on the approach to human health risk from land contamination which have the backing from the Government’s health professionals in the Health Protection Agency (HPA) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA). We have worked closely with these agencies as well as Defra in the production of our revised guidance.

How can I get a copy of the guidance?
You can get electronic copies of the updated CLEA guidance and software free from the Environment Agency website at www.environment-agency.gov.uk/clea. From the 19th January you can also purchase hard copies of the guidance from the Environment Agency’s publications catalogue, which is on our website (http://publications.environment-agency.gov.uk).

Further information is available from our website at
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/clea.

Final updated CLEA framework published including an audit of the CLEA Software
CLEA Bulletin - January 2009 (PDF file - 120 KB).

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 http://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.

• Eugris News - December 24, 2008
  (PDF file - 13 KB)
• Eugris News - November 24, 2008
  (PDF file - 24 KB)