Alternative Remedial Methods for Land Banks
In the current economic climate, it is critical to know the real value of land assets and to be able to assess the difficulty or ease with which a site can be brought into a state ready for future development.
Where future remediation is likely to be problematical and potentially costly, the site may become a liability and have negative effect on the company balance sheet. A review of your land portfolio can identify which sites are immediately more amenable to remediation, while those more likely to prove unprofitable can be then either disposed of, or remediated at a reduced cost but over a longer time period.
A review of land banks need not be a costly exercise – it is likely that data on potential contamination and site conditions was gathered prior to purchase of the site. We can assess this and provide information on which methods are likely to be most suitable for remediating the site, the approximate timescales using those methods and the cost. This informs on the decision whether to retain the sites, or whether perhaps disposal is a better option due to the complexity and future cost of making the site suitable for development.
Prevailing economic conditions mean that development of sites held in a land bank is unlikely to be a priority and probably will not take place until the situation improves enough to make this profitable. However, in many ways this presents a prime opportunity to remediate sites in a more cost effective manner. In the past, remediation of land for development has been driven by deadlines to ensure that the site is suitable for the construction phase of the project within a certain timescale. However, this approach relies on using methods, for example "dig and dump" which are likely to prove costly.
Where sites are held in a land bank and do not require immediate development, alternative, more economical methods may be utilised over a longer timescale. This approach means that the site can be remediated at a dramatically lower cost, thereby enhancing the end value and overall profitability of the site.
The methods employed are generally less aggressive and consequently take longer, but where there are no plans to develop the site in the near future, this can represent a far more cost effective way of cleaning up the site.
Given a longer timescale, a number of methods may be used to remediate the site. Chief amongst these are methods that that rely on utilising naturally occuring soil organisms to break down contaminants.
By careful management these natural processes can be enhanced to ensure that they proceed as efficiently as possible. This is achieved by modifying conditions in the soil or groundwater that may have a limiting effect on bacterial metabolism such as the low oxygen content that prevails in the sub-surface. By using natural methods, the ecology of the site is disturbed as little as possible, making this an attractive prospect for environmentally concious companies.
Frequently, once the source of the contamination has been dealt with, for example a plume of diesel, the conditions may be such that biological activity will break down any residual contamination without further intervention. In these cases all that is required is a comprehensive monitoring programme to provide regulators with empirical evidence that remediation has been carried out to the agreed standard.
Please review our case studies for recent examples of our work with contaminated land sites:
Contact Abricon for free initial advice on all your site investigation and remediation of contaminated land queries.
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