Contaminated sites, landfills and sediments
Precise definitions of 'contaminated land, landfills and sediments' are needed to avoid different interpretations and misunderstandings agreed delegates at an EU workshop on the protection of European water resources held in Venice earlier this year. The proceedings of the June workshop, with a full summary, will be published in October 2000 and will be distributed on the EU concerted action 'environmental technologies' (ETCA) web page and in hard copies on request from the ETCA secretariat. The workshop aimed to review progress achieved within ongoing RTD projects - including CRAFT projects - funded under the Commission's Fourth and Fifth Framework programmes in the area 'abatement of water pollution originating from contaminated land, landfills and sediments'. 'This created a unique opportunity to compare the 'technology development approach' of FP4 with the 'problem solving approach" of FP5,' said the organisers. The workshop was co-organised by the ETCA, EniChem S.p.A. Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale 'La Chimica per l'Ambiente' (INCA) and by the EU RTD Programme 'Environment and Sustainable Development', with support from the Concerted Actions CLARINET, BIOSET and the network NICOLE. The workshop was structured into five technical sessions: sediments, detection/monitoring, soil remediation, groundwater remediation, and risk assessment/decision support systems. 'Strategic discussions' were held after each session, aimed at defining the state-of-the art and identifying priority needs for future R&D work. A final "brainstorming" session tried to develop ideas on how benchmarking, virtual centres of excellence, research and education networks, and research infrastructures could be linked with the R&D action line 'contaminated land, landfills and sediments'. The next annual progress review workshop in this series is scheduled for the end of May 2001 and will be hosted by the University of Leeds, UK.