Events & Courses

Time & location

18:55 for 19:00 start. Online via Zoom

Speakers

Andrew Morgan & Sean Needham (Geosyntec Consultants)

Event details

PFAS is an emerging contaminant of concern within the UK and Europe, which within the last few years is gaining more regulator, client and media attention. PFAS are an extensive group of diverse substances which provide many characterisation and remediation challenges to technical experts and regulators. Clients are now being asked to consider PFAS as a potential environmental risk in their liability management process as well as from a ESG perspective. Within the UK drinking water inspectorate have developed PFAS guidance values which require a risk assessment/management approach to be implemented to supply of potable water, that could become a major consideration for water companies. Legal case law is now demonstrating large US litigation cases and by association insurance companies are being questioned with respect to policy coverage. PFAS is likely to become an important contaminant consideration for future drinking water resources from many UK rivers and aquifers.

This presentation is focused around the addressing the following questions:-

1) What are PFAS?

2) Where are they used?

3) How harmful are they?

4) UK river and groundwater monitoring

5) How can they be Effectively Assessed and Managed?

Speaker bios

Andrew Morgan is an experienced contaminated land professional with over 19 years’ experience in the assessment, management and remediation of contaminated land within the UK and Europe. He is a Chartered Geologist and holds the professional title European Geologist. Mr. Morgan has significant experience in all aspects of site conceptualisation, environmental assessment and remediation engineering including remediation options appraisal, feasibility testing, along with detailed full scale design, installation and verification evaluation. He has provided technical contributions and management to a broad spectrum of contaminated land projects in the UK, mainland Europe, India and Greenland, with extensive experience using a range of standard technologies for the remediation of soils and groundwater, commissioning them as stand-alone systems or combined to provide a multi-phased, integrated solution to tackle more complex sites. Mr Morgan has been part of the transatlantic team which successfully completed a STAR feasibility study in Belgium and has recently completed an in-situ ISCO pilot in the uniquely challenging site conditions of Greenland. Of particular note, project management duties currently include an Enhanced In-Situ Bioremediation project in Ireland which includes amendment injection at 60mbgl and Electric Resistive Heating remediation at a fractured bedrock site in Scotland. He is a guest lecturer on the Cardiff University MSc. Applied Environment Geology Course.

Sean Needham is a Senior Hydrogeologist with over 20 years’ post-doctoral consulting experience in the assessment and remediation of contaminated land and groundwater liabilities within the UK and Europe. Dr. Needham has management and technical leadership experience for many multi-disciplinary projects, specializing in site characterisation, hydrogeological interpretation, groundwater modelling and risk assessment for many complex sites including fractured aquifers and DNAPL affected sites. Key experience includes regulatory liaison on behalf of clients, design & build of contaminant transport models (Modflow, Feflow and Frac3dvs), pumping test design & analysis and groundwater abstraction licence applications. Sean’s PhD research undertaken at the University of Birmingham investigated the mobility and attenuation of the recalcitrant herbicides atrazine and simazine within the UK Chalk aquifer.

Registration

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