London was once again the venue for the Remediation Innovation Awards held in conjuction with the fifth Brownfield Briefing Contaminated Land Conference. One of the highlights of this year's event was a speech made by a Minister from DEFRA who used the occasion to announce their new 20 year soil strategy for England. The strategy covers many soil related issues and includes new guidance on decision making for contaminated land, a review of the existing thresholds for pollutants entering soil and new goals for reducing the loss of carbon from England's soils.
The first evening of the conference was rounded off with the annual Innovation Awards with presentations going to the following companies:
Entec UK & Vertase FLI for their In-Situ Anaerobic Biotreatment of a site near Newcastle.
QDS Environmental Ltd & ERM for their skill in combining remediation techniques to treat a
Dye Manufacturing Facility.
Campbell Reith Hill LLP for their conceptual design for the remediation of a former
Southampton shipyard
Ecologia Environmental Solutions who were judged as providing the most innovative
remediation method with their In-Situ Radio Frequency Heating (ISRFH) - used in the successful
decommissioning of a petrol station
Buro Happold for best project closure/verification
And finally Atkins, National Grid and Bilfinger Berger won recognition for most sustainable remediation
project.
