What is remediation in simple terms?
Remediation refers to the cleanup of contaminated soils and groundwater on a site, and to reduce or eliminate to acceptable levels any current or potential future threat to human health or the environment.
Remediation generally falls into one of three categories:
Removal: Often above ground, harmful chemicals are removed with full de-commissioning of the facility.
Treatment: Contaminated soils and/or groundwater are treated to reduce contamination levels to acceptable risk based limits. This can be done in the ground (known as in situ remediation), or the contaminated soil or groundwater can be removed, cleaned and remain on site (ex situ remediation).
Containment: In some cases the contamination can be left in place, but steps are taken to prevent it from moving into clean air, soil, or groundwater, to prevent people from coming into contact with it.
Our Services include:
- Ex-situ soils treatment
- Soil stabilisation/solidification
- In-situ groundwater treatment
- In-situ soils treatment
- Waste pre-treatment for disposal
- Tank de-commissioning/liquid disposal
- Concurrent concrete and foundation removal
- Consultancy
Remediation Services
The Advantages of working with McAuliffe
Working with you at an early stage McAuliffe’s can help establish the likely costs, timescales and potential methods for Remediation. The critical aspect to all Remediation projects is the initial Site Investigation, subsequent Risk Assessments and Remediation Strategy, this is where the scope and costs are set, not when tenders are returned!
Sadly it is common place, particularly on complex sites, for inadequate Site Investigations to be carried out which leads to inadequate or over scoped Remediation Strategies. Not only does this involve the Client in unnecessary costs but can lead to disputes with Regulators leading to potential significant delays to the project by months and sometimes years.
What Services do we offer?
We aim to help your project avoid the usual pitfalls and deliver best value measured by cost, time, quality and sustainability. We have long standing partnering arrangements with our Clients and often provide our input at pre land purchase stage at no cost, and also consultancy input on a no win, no fee basis depending on the success of Land Acquisition and Planning. We can have significant impact at the 3 key stages to any remediation project:
Stage One – Design
We can work with you and your consultants through the Site Investigation, Risk Assessment and Remediation Design stages. With our experience of different consultants and projects together with our practical know how we can help provide the optimum solution with practical and achievable Remedial Target Values, which Regulators are happy to accept.
Stage Two – Regulatory Approval
This is a critical stage which we increasingly find ourselves supporting Client’s with, either following on from Stage One or when discussions have broken down with the Regulators. We have excellent relationships with Environmental Health and Environment Agency Officers in different regions gained through our contracting reputation and design input.
Stage Three – Implementation
This is the delivery stage where we have to deliver and meet the agreed criteria. We can offer internally and/or with our handpicked partners a variety of innovative physical, chemical and biological remediation technologies for the treatment of a wide range of contaminants.
A further important aspect is that following demolition of above ground structure Remediation schemes almost always involve the reclamation of the existing concrete slabs, deep foundations/bases and underground tanks/ services. It is critical this work is planned and carried out in conjunction with the remediation strategy to avoid cross contamination and potentially worsening the existing contamination. This is also often combined with the re-profiling of the site to ensure correct site levels and geo-technical standards are achieved for the follow on development
We are members of the EIC – Environmental Industries Commission.
Please call 01902 354400 or contact us to discuss your remediation project.
