Our Operations Director Tony Bardwell needs help with spoil disposal with a particular contaminant. We need to find a group of people who can examine the issues with coal tar in the spoil from the canal we are restoring, and what could be done with it. Read on for more details:
It is now becoming apparent that the amount of spoil that needs to be removed from the Wendover Canal bed and banks is greater than had been estimated. The issue with this material is that it contains the coal tar layer that was applied many years ago to waterproof the leaky canal. We discovered, from earlier analysis work on the Historic Refuse Tip, that coal tar was considered to be too hazardous to either remediate or send to landfill. We are, however, able to move this material around on site under the CLA:RE arrangements that are controlled by the Environment Agency.
The plan up until now was to remove the refuse tip soon (possible but expensive). Then we would excavate what has been demonstrated to be good “clean ” spoil from the bed and send it to landfill at relatively low cost. The excavated area would then be backfilled and compacted with the spoil containing coal tar. We have now recognised that the volume of spoil being excavated from the bed/banks that are not in the tip area will be too great to be accommodated under the tip area.
What We Need
We need to find a group of people who can spend some time examining the issues surrounding coal tar and what could be done with it. They need to review the hazardous nature of the coal tar (NOT Bitumen!) to check that we have the correct information about it. This would also include the issues of the spoil containing coal tar, potential separation methods and so on. For instance, if we could separate the coal tar, we could bury it under the canal as we restore it.
If you are interested in participating in this urgent challenge, please contact Tony.Bardwell@wendoverarmtrust.co.uk . Thank you!