Speakers for Remediation Conference 2009
Speakers' Biographies
Jonathan Atkinson MIEnvSc, Environment Agency
Having spent most of his youth in places like Africa, Chile and Fiji, Jonathan undertook a degree in Environmental Sciences at Plymouth and postgrad Dilpoma in Soil and Water Engineering at Silsoe. After his studies he continued his travels by doing VSO in the Philippines and two short stints on soil projects in Papau New Guinea and Burkina Faso.
Jonathan finally got his first proper job at 30 with the KCC Geotechnical Group. After two years he moved to pollution control in the KCC Waste Disposal Dept, which evolved into Waste Regulation. He joined the Environment Agency when it was formed in 1996 as the WRA was moved from the county to the Agency. He has worked on risk assessment of developed closed landfill sites, landfill engineering and environmental control enforcement on licenced sites, and a variety of contaminated land projects.
Frank Evans, National Grid Property, Technology Development Manager
Frank Evans is Performance Manager with the Land Regeneration team of National Grid Property. He has responsibility for enabling continuous improvement in National Grid’s remediation activities and management of its Brownfield portfolio. This includes managing the uptake of remediation technologies within National Grid and minimising the waste being sent to landfill.
It is a role which includes developing the Cluster site concept, assessing sustainability, developing robust contract terms for specialist contractors; and working with external organisations to develop supporting guidance and regulations.
In relation to the Definition of Waste: Development Industry Code of Practice, he has acted as SAGTA’s representative on the steering group supporting last year’s publication of the Code and its on-going development.
Previously, he has 9 years of project management experience of site investigations and remediation activities on former gasworks sites. Projects have included the use of thermal desorption, soil washing, bioremediation and the first UK pilot-study of Cluster. Originally, he trained as a hydrogeologist.
Ged Duckworth, Specialist in Land Condition and Chartered Waste Manager
Ged has 18 years experience in the waste management and land contamination fields. He has worked in the Environment Agency, employed as Regional Waste Technical Manager and then the Land Contamination Policy Manager responsible for Part IIA and the Agency’s role as a consultee in the develop control regime.
Following contributions to the work of the Remediation Permit working group, resulting in the report “Remediation Permit – Towards a single regeneration licence” (the Kirby Report) he spent 18 months as a special advisor in Defra’s Waste Management Division in the Departments Waste Permitting Review project.
Ian Heasman - BSc MSc DIC MIEMA C Env SiLC
Coming from an earth sciences background, Ian has twenty years experience in industry, consultancy and academia within the area of environmental assessment and management. Ian’s main area of expertise is brownfield regeneration, focusing on site characterisation, risk assessment and remediation, as well as policy and legislative matters.
Ian’s career started at Imperial College and with environmental consultancy practices ERM and then RPS. For the last twelve years he has been working within the construction sector, initially within civil engineering. Ian is currently the Brownfield Remediation Manager for Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd, the UK’s largest house builder. He represents his company at national and international forums including NICOLE, SAGTA, the HBF and with government. He is a Chartered Environmentalist (C Env) and a SiLC (Specialist in Land Condition).
Dr Richard Boyle, Brownfield Technical Consultant, English Partnerships
Richard has a very wide theoretical and practical background of investigating and risk assessing brownfield sites. This started within academia, where he gained a BSc, MSc and PhD in environmental topics and remediation, which has been followed with nearly 8 years experience in environmental consultancies. Recently, Richard joined English Partnerships to provide internal and external advice on brownfield projects and to assist in providing advice to Central and Local Governments and to work on the implementation of the National Brownfield Strategy.
During time at consultancy he has worked on many investigations, risk assessments and remedial options appraisal and implementation for many types of land owners, including Blue Chip companies, major house builders and Local Authorities. He has worked for those attempting to bring about and defend Part IIA determinations.
Richard has gained a particular interest in the investigation and risk assessment of sites potentially affected by ground gases. This culminated with being joint author of the National House Builders Council (NHBC) “Guidance on Evaluation of Development Proposals on Sites where Methane and Carbon Dioxide are Present”. Richard was on the Steering Committee for the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) Report 665 “Assessing Risks Posed by Hazardous Ground Gases in Buildings” and is on the current Steering Committee for “Assessment and Management of VOC Vapours and Other Trace Gases from Contaminated Ground on Brownfield Sites”.
Matt Whitehead is the project manager for the SiLC (Specialist in Land Condition) skills development framework. This project was initiated in response to the EP/ASC Brownfield Skills Strategy. It aims to deliver a skills development framework for all those involved in ensuring that brownfield land is made suitable for current and future uses. In his substantive role Matt works for the Environment Agencys National Technical Services team. He provides specialist advice and training to Agency staff on contaminated land risk assessment, remediation and related regulatory issues.
Rebecca Wallace, Senior Consultant, New Fields
Rebecca Wallace is a Senior Consultant with NewFields, an international consulting firm that assists clients with creative environmental risk management approaches. She has more than twenty years of environmental consulting experience working at sites across the United States, as well as the Caribbean and Europe.
Dr Joe Teer, Operations Director of QDS Environmental Limited
Dr Joe Teer is the Operations Director of QDS Environmental Limited, one of the most established, recognized and innovative specialist remediation companies working in the UK. Amongst his many roles at QDS is that of managing QDS’ technology development programme. It is this constant drive to develop appropriate solutions to difficult remediation problems that has allowed QDS to maintain its market position as a leader in innovation. In this role Joe has been at the forefront of In situ remediation methods development since joining QDS in the mid 90’s following completion of an award winning PhD at Imperial College, London. Joe has been instrumental in bringing a number of technologies to the UK market including most notably application of surfactants, a key technology in the case study presented, and the now widely used, In-situ chemical oxidation, a technology now regarded as one of the core group of standard remediation tools.
James Baldock, Senior Consultant, Environmental Resources Management
James has 13 years of experience in the fields of environmental site investigation and design, implementation and management of a wide variety of contaminated soil and groundwater remediation projects and hydrogeological assessments for a variety of sites impacted by petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents and/or metals. James has successfully designed and managed several pilot and often complex full scale in-situ remediation projects involving a wide range of technologies including pump and treat, soil vapour extraction, bioventing, air sparging, chemical oxidation, enhanced bioremediation technologies and in-situ thermal treatment. James also has extensive experience with 'real time' site investigation characterisation techniques, including the first two projects in the UK to use a Waterloo Profiler.
Sarah MacKay, WSP Environment & Energy
Sarah is a highly competent technical specialist and project director with extensive experience of contamination assessment in the public sector. As a Senior Technical Director of WSP Environment & Energy, Sarah provides advice, support and technical guidance to WSP to deliver technical excellence. With over 16 years post doctoral experience in the assessment and remediation of contaminated land, she has a wealth of experience in contaminated sites.
Sarah is an expert in assessing the risks to groundwaters and surface waters, helping the Environment Agency develop guidance on how to calculate soil clean up guidelines for the protection of water resources. She has worked in many european countries, applying and developing contaminated land risk assessment techniques under differing and changing legislative frameworks. She has worked for a wide variety of public and private sector clients, predominantly in the chemical sector and for the Environment Agency and DEFRA.
Sarah recently chaired the NICOLE 2009 conference on sustainable remediation and is involved in several sustainable remediation working groups.
Tony Brown, Director of Ground Engineering, Mouchel Limited
Tony Brown has over 20 years experience in the investigation and remediation of contaminated land. He has acted as Project Manager on several major remediation schemes including the £32 million Dublin Gasworks Remediation Project. He is currently advising a number of local authorities in connection with the Part 2A regime including Wigan Council at the largest such scheme currently being undertaken in the UK comprising the remediation of over 300 properties at a large housing estate in Ince. Tony is a Chartered Civil Engineer and is SiLC accredited. He currently acts as Chairman of the North West Geotechnical Group for the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was awarded The Fleming Award for Excellence in Engineering Design and Construction by the British Geotechnical Group in 2004.
John Crowther, Technical Director, Mouchel Limited
Mr Crowther was appointed Divisional Director in 2003. He is one of the most experienced engineers in the UK in the field of brownfield land investigation and remediation with experience dating back to 1977 when he worked on a number of former steelworks sites. Since then he has been responsible for project management of numerous schemes on former gasworks, collieries, landfills, chemical works etc with associated legal and technical waste issues. Through work in Ireland he has extensive experience of soil treatment technologies such as thermal desorption and soil washing. Recently he has been Project Director of a number of Part 2A investigations leading to determination and remediation. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a Chartered Engineer and Environmentalist. He is also a Specialist in Land Condition (SiLC).
Dr Jan Hellings MBA, PhD, DIC, MSc, CEng, FICE. Project Sponsor – Enabling Works. Olympic Development Authority
Jan is a Chartered Civil Engineer, having specialised for many years in ground engineering and the sustainable development of derelict land for commercial, industrial, residential and infrastructure projects both in the private and public sectors. He has played a key role in the UK bringing together the geotechnical and geoenvironmental disciplines necessary for the successful development of brownfield land. Jan has been invited to present evidence to the House of Commons Environment Select Committee.
He has led the ground engineering discipline of several major consultancies in the UK. He presently has the responsibility for all the preparatory works which are being undertaken prior to the construction of the London 2012 Olympic venues on the 500 acre site in east London.
He is past chairman of the Association of Geotechnical and Geo-environmental Specialists; he is a Board member of the Construction Industry Council where he is Honorary Treasurer and a past chair of its Sustainable Development Committee. He was also a member of the DTI sponsored Sustainability Focus Task Group. He is a Steering Group member of the Sustainable Urban Brownfield Regeneration research project (‘SUBR:IM’). He is a Visiting Reader in Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Southampton.
Jan is presently a Board Director of British Urban Regeneration Association; he is a former tutor of the Environment and Sustainable Development module for the BURA-GRADE Programme.
He has been an invited speaker at many conferences, including in New York, Nashville and San Diego of US ground specialists’ trade association ASFE and was an invited speaker at the Canadian Urban Institute ‘Canadian Brownfields 2005’ conference.
Neil Williams, Construction Manager, St. Modwen
Neil Williams joined St. Modwen, the UK’s leading regeneration specialist, in 2007 and is the construction manager for the company’s South Wales region. Of his major projects in this region, he counts the £1 billion regeneration of the former BP Llandarcy Oil Refinery in Neath into the 1,060 acre Coed Darcy Urban Village. He is also driving the company's acquisition of a 2,500 acre portfolio of former BP sites situated across the UK.
Prior to St. Modwen, Neil spent 10 years at Atkins where he was a principal consultant. A Chartered Engineer, Neil has achieved an MSC (Eng) Engineering degree and BSc Honours degree in Geology. He is also a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers and is a Chartered Environmentalist.
Dr Giacomo Maini spent two years at the University of Bologna, Italy, studying for a degree in agricultural sciences before winning an Erasmus Scholarship and moving to England. At the University of Kent he obtained a first degree in Microbiology and then proceeded to complete a PhD in Environmental Microbiology, investigating the microbial degradation of pesticides in the aqueous environment. Dr Maini joined IBS Viridian Ltd in 1996 as the lead investigator of a LINK grant looking at the remediation of heavy metals in contaminated land using a novel electrokinetic technique. In 1998 he became responsible for technical project management of in-situ and ex-situ bioremediation projects for Viridian in England, Italy and Indonesia.
Dr Maini initiated the formation of Ecologia Environmental Solutions Ltd in the UK in 2000, with the view of providing technical expertise and consultancy to companies operating in the contaminated land market. Ecologia is now a significant player in the contaminated land & groundwater market in the UK where Dr Maini is Managing Director. In the last year Ecologia has opened a new office in Stafford and set up a subsidiary company in Italy
