Updated BDA Guidance for Working on Potentially Contaminated Sites
Earlier this year, the British Drilling Association published a new Health Safety and Environment guidance document, 'Safe Intrusive Activities on Land Potentially Impacted by Contaminated Land (ICE).' This guidance replaces the former guidance document, 'Guidance for Safe Intrusive Activities on Contaminated or Potentially Contaminated Land’.
The original revision was first published in 1992 considering legislation and a drive to improve safety for the ground investigation workforce who may be exposed to potentially harmful substances at work. Since then, with minor amendments until the latest revision, the site risk classification scheme has been adopted in the ground investigation industry to identify to all personnel the degree of risk presented by potentially harmful substances, which may be present in the ground or groundwater at the site they are investigating.
The new guidance has been updated to account for new legislation, advances in technology, safer systems of work and an increased focus on competence and qualifications for those who are involved in the investigation of potentially contaminated sites.
Of note is a new section on re-classification of sites which has been added to the new guidance with the aim to advise on the process. It was acknowledged that a process was required when the site condition and level of risk presented had changed i.e. where further controls were required to protect the work force and laboratory technicians dealing with the samples or where the ground conditions warranted declassification to a lower risk ranking such as when encountering natural strata where only asbestos in the Made Ground was of concern.
Examples of such changes include encountering unforeseen contamination, positive asbestos identification on site (either ACMS observed in logging or positive asbestos IDs in environmental testing) or higher concentrations of contaminants being recorded than what was originally anticipated.
Our Ground Investigation team’s Geoenvironmental Lead Darren Makin was part of the Working Group involved in the development of the new guidance. The requirements of the updated approach had been included in SOCOTEC’s new internal procedures described in GEO-TP-601: Approach for Applying the BDA Risk Classification to a GI Project and incorporate the changes and considerations. When working with SOCOTEC you can be assured that safety of our employees and protection of the environment is paramount. SOCOTEC have the expertise and controls to manage risks presented to ground investigation personnel and third parties when working on contaminated sites to ensure that everyone and the environment is protected on your projects.
