environmental/land remediation

As the pressure for domestic and industrial development land builds the remediation and recovery of ‘brown field’ sites has become increasingly important for the UK. The development of ‘brown field’ sites is attractive for a number of reasons:

• It removes ‘eye sores’ and improves the appearance of the locality for neighbouring sites and residents.
• It removes the potential for the contamination to migrate and become worse, potentially affecting surface or ground waters or air quality.
• It relieves the pressure on ‘greenfield’ sites for new developments.

During the restoration process environmental consultants routinely consider a range of contaminants during the initial phases of a site investigation programme. It generally covers organic compounds, non-metallic inorganic compounds and inorganic metals. It is notable, however, that the routine list does not include any radioactive material, even though aspects relating to the use, control, and disposal of radioactive materials, arguably causes people the most concern and is more heavily regulated than any other industrial area.

Consideration of possible issues relating to the presence of radioactive materials, to a large extent, relies on the knowledge/expertise of the individual environmental consultants/site owners/operators or any other ‘stakeholder’ (e.g. insurance company) and of them being aware of the issues and the possibility that radioactive materials can arise from a wide variety of sources.

Often, mistakenly, people assume that radioactivity need not be a consideration, unless the site has obviously been associated with the nuclear power, nuclear defence or related industries. Whilst this is a common approach, it is becoming increasingly evident that radioactivity can be a significant factor in a much wider context.

Staff from Aurora have for many years been heavily involved in providing radiation safety support to radiological assessment and contaminated land management.

Aurora provides advice and services for all aspects of radioactively contaminated land projects. Services include radiation surveys, RPA advice, environmental impact assessments, training and provision of specialist radiation safety support all the way through to managing complete remediation projects.