Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe water environment is often neglected in the assessment of the impact of contaminated land and its redevelopment. The lack of effective legislative controls over derelict contaminated land areas and the poor appreciation of water pollution by developers and planning authorities in the undertaking and controlling of site redevelopment has severely hindered effective clean‐up and protection of groundwater and surface waters.The formation of the National Rivers Authority, the publication of the House of Commons Environment Committee's report and the implementation of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 have given the subject a new impetus. The preparation of registers by local authorities, which identify contaminated land areas, could be enhanced by the National River Authority's assessment of key sites. It is hoped to initiate clean‐up by cooperation, but the testing of legislative powers has been encouraged by the Government, if only to reveal their inadequacies.

ABSTRACTA detailed investigation of contamination by chlorinated solvents of the Chalk Aquifer underlying the towns of Luton and Dunstable was undertaken to assess the extent, causes and mechanisms of pollution. The research programme incorporated land‐use surveys, regional groundwater surveys, monitoring of groundwater abstraction points and aquifer profiling by means of the drilling of observation boreholes, the analysis of the recovered core material and the depth sampling of these and other boreholes.Low‐level solvent contamination of the Chalk Aquifer was found to be widespread with 'hotspots'of higher concentrations. At the drilling sites, both the saturated and unsaturated zones were contaminated with solvents, although free product was not observed. The presence of an additional contaminant, oil, at some sites was noted to influence the distribution of solvents within the aquifer.Clean‐up of the aquifer is not a practical option, and treatment of the groundwater at the abstraction points has been adopted.