Wee Notes

Groundwater

I was speaking to Alex earlier today about the problems of groundwater contamination. SEPA has updated and substantially changed its guidelines concerning the assessment of groundwater, particularly with respect to historic contamination. 

As many of you will be very well aware, many local shallow groundwater bodies have been, and indeed are, contaminated due to past industrial activities. In the past such contamination may have been assessed as being representative of the area as a whole and outwith the capacity of the development to remediate - this is not so now and new sites will have to assess the site based on a number of metrics. At the tail end of the day Alex and I discussed possible cost effective groundwater mitigation measures for a site down in Galloway. The site will not bear costly dig and dump or chemical remediation methods and Alex’s suggestion may well improve the environmental and liberate the site for development. Two birds with one stone.

I’ll keep you informed as this progresses.