A fire officer met me at the door. "We've completed spill containment but there's someone who would like to talk to you," he said.
Inside was a man whose face was covered with recently treated burns - and a detective who took me to one side. “This man claims to have been making biodiesel in his back garden shed, when a bag of chemical exploded in his face,” he said. “Can you confirm whether his story checks out?”
Back in 1999 when I was doing research before co-authoring CIRIA’s contaminated land risk assessment guide, industry consultation revealed contaminated land professionals’diverse backgrounds – biologists, chemists, geologists and engineers with a smattering of lawyers, mathematicians, economists and even accountants, all calling themselves contaminated land risk assessment practitioners. There is no one ideal qualification, but today was a good day to be a chemist.
“Yes, these chemicals are consistent with the type and quantity needed to make biodiesel,” I responded. The detective said his attendance was at such incidents was routine, given today’s international climate, but obtaining scientific assistance was more difficult, especially out-of-hours.
Later, after warning the householder about handling even domestically available chemicals, I travelled to view the commencement of a site investigation for a proposed new development. The developer had wisely decided to take local residents’ claims of “buried toxic waste from the 1940s” into account at the planning stage and I watched as three trial trenchs failed to reveal obvious wastes.
As I left, one resident admitted: “Perhaps my memory is fading after all these years”. Is this a typical day for a specialist pollution officer? It’s difficult to say, as there is no such thing as routine. Regulators like pollution control and contaminated land officers are very much on the front line and making rapid decisions is just a normal part of the day. They often work as the authority’s sole specialist and need a grasp of a wide range of pollution and historic land contamination issues.
But they are not alone. Having recently switched to the public sector after 25 years’ private consultancy, I am struck by an unexpected willingness of officers to share experience and provide assistance.
I chaired a surgery at NSCA’s autumn conference in which technical and procedural problems were laid in front of the whole conference and responses were invited from both delegates and speakers. A lively discussion ensued. So if you phone your local contaminated land officer without success, please be patient. They may be investigating a shed in your neighbourhood.
David Rudland SiLC drudland@swindon.gov.uk 011793 466044
