Navigating PFAS and Community Acceptance

Talking PFAS Episode 44 Show Description/Notes/Links

INTRO:

Welcome back to Talking PFAS podcast.  I am a journalist and your host Kayleen Bell.  If you are new to the podcast, I encourage you to have a binge listen, as the content is, of course, still very relevant today as attention, regulation and litigation regarding PFAS chemicals continues to accelerate. 

Today’s discussion is an Interview with two guests who were training people at the CRC Care Risk to Remediation Masterclass in Newcastle from the 1-5 May, 2023.

My guests are Paul Nathanail from Nottingham, England, Technical Director of LQM, which specialises in contaminated land management in England and around the world.   I have previously interview Paul before, when he was a keynote speaker at CRC Care International Clean Up Conference in Adelaide, South Australia.  You can hear that very important discussion in episode 37.

My second guest is Scott Warner, from California, who is a geologist, and has specialised as a hydrogeologist studying and assessing groundwater conditions, for 40 years.  Scott is the Principal Hydrogeologist for the BBJ Group.  

In early May I had the privilege of attending one of the training days at the CRC Care’s 4th Risk to Remediation Masterclass.  This course was held from the 1-5 May, 2023, at Newcastle (NSW), Australia.  I interviewed Paul and Scott at the end of a long week and a long day of very in depth training.  It is important to clarify that this was not a course that was solely dedicated to PFAS remediation but remediation in general, which included PFAS. 

CRC Care provided me with this information following the event:

“The CRC are Risk to Remediation Masterclass was a five-day course that provided participants with the cutting edge skills to manage and remediate contaminated sites in Australia and globally.  This course was developed in response to the critical need to build capacity to address the growing global contamination crisis.

While technical lessons learned through the study of past projects an advantage of this course was the semi-structured discussions problem-solving and personal interactions that allowed participants to consider the many facets of modern contaminant site assessment and remedial design. 

The course also discussed aspects of sustainable low impact remediation approaches, climate change considerations, policy and regulatory matters and economic considerations, all within the context of gaining and maintaining a social licence to operate.                               

There were 75 delegates present, and the Masterclass 2023 was attended by delegates from Australia and from overseas.  The delegates were from a varied background and experience.  They were from Department of Defence, regulators for EPA VIC and EPA Tasmania, Federal Government, consultants and practitioners, academia, scientists, researchers and early career professionals.  And the overseas delegates were from Malaysia and South Africa.  Now to my discussion with Paul Nathanail from the UK and Scott Warner from California.

Special thanks to CRC Care for allowing me to attend.

LINKS: 

Link to Scott Warner’s survey: https://forms.office.com/r/iSZdvnN6XS

Link to Scott Warner’s Wiley paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/rem.21753

Link to Scott Warner’s company BBJ Group: https://www.bbjgroup.com/

Link to Paul Nathanail company LQM: https://www.lqm.co.uk/pages/meet-the-team

Link to CRC Care: https://crccare.com/

OUTRO:          (With Important PFAS News from Australia)

I hope to bring you some information from the ALGA event that I attended at the end of April later in this season.  

PFAS NEWS AUSTRALIA

I have some big. Australia PFAS news.  You might have heard me mention a Super Class Action which is now being referred to as a Multi-Site PFAS Class Action. 

The following information is largely taken from a Shine Lawyers media release, but not all is a direct quote.

The applicants in the multi-site PFAS Class Action represented by Shine Lawyers have reached an ‘in principle’ agreement with the Commonwealth to settle the multi-site PFAS Contamination class action against the Department of Defence.

These are residents from seven communities across Bullsbrook (WA), Richmond (NSW), Wagga Wagga (NSW), Wodonga/Bandiana (VIC), Edinburgh (SA), Darwin (NT), and Townsville (QLD).  Shine Lawyers state that those seven communities were set to head to the Federal Court for the start of a trial which would examine the Commonwealth’s alleged responsibility for the spread of PFAS chemicals from military bases across the country into neighboring communities soil and groundwater.  

Shine lawyers fought to compensate residents living near these military bases after their properties lost value due to contamination caused by these toxic chemicals and the parties have agreed in principle on an amount of $132.7 million and the break-up of that amount is yet to be determined but it could include up to 30,000 people.  Shine Lawyers joint head of class actions Craig Allsop said while the news is positive the outcome is still subject to approval by the Federal Court. 

Shine Lawyers will continue to pursue compensation for residents of Wreck Bay in the matter of Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council and Anor -v- the Commonwealth.  And Justice Lee ordered a further remediation in the Wreck Bay proceeding and stood the hearing down until the 29th of May.

I hope to bring you more about the super class action in the future in the podcast.  And I encourage any of the residents who were involved in this class action and would like to share their PFAS story to please reach out to me at TalkingPFAS@gmail.com

If you have not subscribed to the podcast I encourage you to subscribe so that you will not miss an episode.  As always all information in today’s episode is copyright but please feel free to share the episode via email or social media or wherever you share your podcasts and please contact me for republishing permissions. 

Thanks again for listening - I value your feedback and suggestions.

Listening Tip:  I know most of my listeners prefer to listen on their mobile, and I personally like to listen to podcasts on my mobile with earbuds, but for some people this episode might be better to listen to on a desktop.  This is only if you don’t like very mild background noise from the nearby bingo that was happening outside the room we interviewed in at the event venue.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.