Emerging Issues in dealing with Contaminated Sites in Australia Peter Nadebaum | GHD Pty Ltd

Emerging issues – contaminated land

A personal view on emerging issues and implications, what we can do

?

I declare some of my interests: consultant, ALGA and CRC CARE My views are not necessarily the views of GHD or these

organisations

Backdrop • Realisation that land is contaminated – 1980s • “Risk-based land management” • Audit system • ACLCA, CRC CARE,ALGA. SuRF ANZ

• State based guidelines • NEPM • NRF Flexible risk-based system – allows sustainability, practicability

International

• Europe: trying to embrace sustainable remediation • Next policy wave: integrating ecosystem services with remediation

• USA: risk-based land management – dictated by EPA

high level of science and technology inhibited by litigation Ideally the future for Australia: adopt Europe’s policy initiatives and USA’s science and technology, retain a flexible system, try to avoid the pitfalls of the USA litigious system

Backdrop to Sustainable Development in Australia: How are we doing?

• UN 2015 report on progress in Sustainable Development: • Australia 18th of 34 OECD nations - below Canada, NZ, even UK • Among worst in OECD on resource use per head, waste per

head, GHG / GDP

We need to do better!

Pixabay Free Image – Toy koala bear – real ones are functionally extinct Source: ALGA

Earth Overshoot Day = (World Biocapacity)/World Ecological Footprint) x 365

Source: ALGA

We need to be more sustainable

What are some of the emerging issues our industry needs to address for our approach to be more sustainable? Implications and response “Industry”: regulatory agencies, industry, researchers, consultants

Issue 1: An ever expanding problem Increasing analytical capability – many chemicals, quantifiable at trace levels Increasing ability to detect the potential for adverse effects • Examples: PFAS, weathered hydrocarbons, microplastics, fire

retardants, phthalates, pesticides/herbicides and their metabolites, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, antibiotic resistant pathogens, etc

• Current approach: • Wait for contaminant to become a recognised issue • Then set stringent no-effect criteria on a precautionary basis –

contaminant by contaminant – “bottom up”

The ever expanding problem

Implications: • Risk to industry: “you knew but didn’t act” –

liable • We need to understand risk

• Consider alternative top down approach

Source: Film School Rejects

Top down approach: State of the Bays

Baseline environmental study of Port Phillip Bay and Westernport Bay: • Agree on a set of 36 indicators of effect • Assess status of these indicators • Determine causes and actions –

contamination? • Synthesises a wide range of information,

identifies data gaps. • Adaptive management + evidence base

Source: State of the Bays Commissioner for Environment Sustainability

The ever expanding problem Response?

• Efficient • Responsible • Protects against litigation

Source: Adelaide Law School

• Top down plus bottom up: • Indicators of effect/effect contaminants/criteria/presence/effects • Research and collaboration to develop authoritative position • What is a serious problem attributable to contamination, what is not

Issue 2: Chemicals: we fear the worst Application of the precautionary principle in setting criteria Problem: predict potential for effect; demand no potential for effect

• Some examples: carcinogens, dioxins and furans, asbestos, PFAS • But: lead, arsenic, asbestos, nutrients (N, P), pathogens

Implications: • Carcinogens: $1 billion per life saved? • We may not identify and respond to the most significant problems • We may not achieve as much real benefit as we might otherwise • We need to be protective but avoid excessive precaution

We fear the worst Response? • Develop authoritative industry understanding of what are serious

problems and what are not • Systematic evidence-based research – body of knowledge • Look for indicators of actual serious effect • Control chemical use – trends with time

Issue 3: Identifying more and more contaminated sites

• Digitising historical business records – 10s of thousands of potential sites. • Plus areas with historical fill and waste disposal.

Business listings

More and more contaminated sites Implications: • If we apply very stringent precautionary criteria - potential to

condemn large areas of our older suburbs • Where do we sit with our duty of care? • Do we really believe our precautionary policies and criteria? Can

we afford apply them to the totality of the problem? • Dutch: considered this many years ago Response: Quantify the totality of the problem Inform policy – how to target our efforts?

Issue 4: Sustainability

Competing demands: • Protect human health and environment from contamination • Sustain our resources, reduce emissions of Green House

Gases (energy use, resource use) Implications: • Need to understand and adopt sustainable practices Response: • Encourage sustainability - practice guides • Encourage rating schemes (eg ISCA – Infrastructure

Sustainability Council of Australia)

Issue 4: Outrage and business practices Outrage = money • Good business to create

fear • One fibre kills!

• Increasing ability to polarise and create outrage

Canberra Times 9 March 2017: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/interactive/2017/toxic-tide/ • Business – fund litigation – good return on investment

• Huge sums assigned in litigation – punish –did we know? • Glyphosate and PFAS: (> $1 billion?)

Outrage and business practices Implications • Increasing litigation; threat to social licence to operate • Waste resources, drive unsustainable practices Response • Engage community • Owners: establish risk-based management system – audited • Did we know? Did we respond reasonably at the time? • Industry: establish authoritative informed understanding of issues and

priorities for response - probability that an effect will occur if exposure or no exposure. Understand uncertainty/statistics

Issue 5: Heterogeneity, complexity, extent

• Far higher cost to treat dilute dispersed contamination per kg than in the source area

• PFAS: $10,000/kg in source areas cf $10 million/kg in low concentration groundwater

• Our environment and distribution of contamination – heterogeneous • Groundwater contamination – high resolution site characterisation • Distribution, metabolites, flux, residuals, time, extent, completeness

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Heterogeneity, complexity, extent

Implications: need better methods and policies Response: Policy: build a more sustainable approach: practicable, proportionate, time-based, flux-based, exposure-based strategies targeting source areas – all in our existing policies Technical capability: develop better methods of characterising and understanding distribution, flux, risk Mass mass flux concentration (<< 1% = >> risk) Time: better understand trends in concentration/risk with time

Issue 6: Rapidly increasing knowledge • Humans are very good at protecting themselves • When a problem arises that has cost implications, research

effort is directed to it – eg PFAS. • Scientific methods are becoming more advanced, able to look

more fundamentally and in greater detail

PFAS Publications: Research Gate

Rapidly increasing knowledge

Implications We need to improve our understanding and methods Response • Set up a process to systematically review, understand, synthesise,

apply and share new information, methods and technologies • Draw on existing knowledge, don’t reinvent • Involve teams of our best specialists; peer review • Involve our collaborative industry groups to disseminate knowledge

(eg CRC CARE, ALGA, ACLCA)

Some key messages • Understand the level of risk posed by contamination – look for

evidence of effect • Target contamination in source areas, high mass flux, high risk

– best return, more sustainable • For areas with lower contaminant concentrations and lower risk –

low energy solutions over a longer time period • Examine our policies, resist being driven by fear, adopt a

measured, science and evidence-based, collaborative, consultative, team-based approach

• Authoritative state of the knowledge and good practice guides

Is there a role for research organisations, industry associations and specialists? Absolutely: Examine our policies, resist being driven by fear, adopt a measured, science and evidence-based, collaborative, consultative, team-based approach eg: • CRC CARE: collaborative industry-driven research

• ALGA: collaborative industry-wide organisation +SuRF ANZ • ACLCA: voice for consultants • Auditors – independent peer review • ALGA interest Groups

Can we look to our regulators to advance our industry? Not so much: Regulatory initiatives and advances generally result from catastrophe We can’t wait for them Australian regulators are not well set up to: • Do research • Champion new science/technological approaches/advances • Inform - run conferences and regular industry meetings/networking BUT: they make the final decision on policy – we follow

What might our collaborative research and industry associations do?

1. Inform policy • Compare and benchmark Australian policy with international

jurisdictions • Identify contaminated sites and contamination and indicators of

effect – the magnitude of the problem and how to respond to it • Understand “duty of care”, “reasonably practicable”,

“proportionate” “precautionary” and “sustainable” and how these apply to contaminated sites and particular problems

• Engage with stakeholders

Inform policy: Framework for thinking about “proportionate” and “practicable”: New Victorian Environment Protection Act requires: • Minimise/eliminate risks of harm to human health and the environment “so far

as reasonably practicable” “Reasonably practicable” - regard must be had to:

(a) the likelihood of those risks eventuating (b) the degree of harm that would result if those risks eventuated (c) what the person concerned ought reasonably to know about the harm or risks of harm and any ways of eliminating or reducing those risks (d) the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or reduce those risks (e) the cost of eliminating or reducing those risks

Minimise/eliminate risk where • Risk = consequence x likelihood that the consequence will occur

EPA Publication 1695 (2018) Assessing and Controlling Risk: A Guide for Business

HACCP

2. Respond to new and emerging contaminants

eg PFAS, etc etc • Scoping study for each contaminant – the magnitude of the problem

in Australia, risk posed, evidence for and level of effect, concern to stakeholders, cost to reduce the risk and perception of risk, practicability – decide what to do if anything – authoritative statement/consensus

Knowledge can protect our health and environment ………and us

3. Identifying and assessing contamination

• Information: understanding, synthesising and applying advances in investigation, assessment and risk assessment

• Develop new approaches to assessment • Revise the EILs, understand uncertainty and risk, uptake criteria,

bioavailability

What is the real level of effect? What level of investment is required to achieve what outcome? Control on chemical use?

4. Remediation and management

• Information: authoritative rolling review of new and developing technologies, application of existing technologies, demonstration of technologies and approaches

• Develop better in-situ methods, more sustainable solutions, consider time

5. Community concerns and litigation

• Understand the basis for litigation and community concern, and what evidence would assist in responding to concerns

• Better understand the potential for effect of contaminants and disseminate this – engage with our communities

6. Target the research effort

• Identify and target what will really make a difference and solve the problem – more work in advance

• What constitutes research? • Consider and draw on international knowhow – don’t reinvent • Enlist experts in our industry to help identify and steer research

and the development of authoritative guidance documents

• We can do better!

Reflection

Prepare authoritative guidance – really?

Maybe we should be thinking about developing Wikiconsoil?

Maybe a CRC CARE + ALGA initiative?

Advancing the industry is a slow process, but it can happen

Our mission?

• For Australia to lead the world in the sustainable management of contaminated sites

• We can do this!

• And we can share our knowledge and approach with the rest of the world and encourage them to come the journey!

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