A word from the Chairs - Emerging Contaminants of Concern

- Vicki Pearce - Chair, Charles Grimison - Co-Chair Emerging Contaminants of Concern

Throughout the latter part of 2022 ALGA and the United States (US) based Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) increased engagement and collaboration activities to benefit their collective member bases.

The first key event was a workshop in November 2022: Working Together on PFAS. The hybrid event had approximately 50 people attend in person in Sydney and 300 online attendees. The limit of 300 online attendees was reached around five minutes before the event started demonstrating the keen interest of ALGA and ITRC members.

During this first collaboration three speakers from each the US and Australia were asked two
pre-supplied questions relating to the regulatory environment in their country, remediation technologies, and fluorine free aqueous film forming foams with a Q&A session at the end. The event was expertly facilitated by Danielle Toase, Environment Manager, Sydney Airport with the speakers including:

• Shalene Thomas, Vice President & Global Emerging Contaminant Program Manager, WSP (US)
• Bill Di Guiseppi, Principal Hydrogeologist, Jacobs (US)
• Kristi Herzer, Environmental Analyst and Technical Program Lead, Vermont Depart of Environmental Conservation (US)
• Dr John Hunt, Senior Technical Adviser, GHD (Australia)
• Andrew Mitchell, NSW Environmental Manager, ADE Consulting (Australia)
• Nigel Holmes, Principal Advisor Incident Management, QLD Department of Environment & Science (Australia)

Following the success of this first event and positive feedback from both ITRC and ALGA members, further events are planned throughout 2023.

The first event was an expert panel on the latest news on microplastics policies, regulations, and research from the US, Australia, and around the globe. The panel included six speakers from the US, Australia and Europe, and compared responses to date which was followed by a discussion on next steps for microplastics.  Patti Reyes, Director ITRC and Matt Potter, CEO ALGA moderated the event which was held on Thursday 23 March 2023 (Video Link).

As part of the PFAS Event Series to held in April and May 2023, ITRC and ALGA will continue its collaboration with the Network for Industrially Coordinated sustainable Land Management in Europe (NICOLE) also participating. The theme of the event series is PFAS Into the Future: Towards 2028 and will commence on the afternoon of Wednesday 26 April 2023 with ITRC trainers providing industry training across key topics including site characterisation, fate and transport, fluorine free foams, treatment technologies, and other important topics. On Thursday 27 April, ITRC representatives will participate in the PFAS Workshop, including discussion of US priorities in relation to PFAS. Finally on the morning of Friday 28 April 2023, ITRC, NICOLE, ALGA and invited delegates will discuss how our organisations can continue to work together and provide our respective member bases with the most value (Further details and registration:  https://landandgroundwater.com/page/pfas-event-series). ITRC will also provide PFAS training in Christchurch and Auckland during the week of 1 May 2023 (Further details and registration: https://landandgroundwater.com/page/pfas-training-new-zealand).

The collaboration between ITRC and ALGA will continue throughout 2023 with further online events, a roundtable follow up at ecoforum/SustRem and regular catch ups between the organisations.

If you have suggestions for online event topics, or themes for our ongoing collaboration, please contact Matt Potter (matthew@landandgroundwater.com), Vicki Pearce (vicki.pearce@ventia.com) or Charles Grimison (Charles.grimison@ventia.com ).

Article Published on 20/04/2023

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