Monday, October 30, 2017

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Wednesday, October 25, 2017

GUEST BLOG: Advocating chemical engineering to the next generation – Madeleine Jones

By day, Chartered Chemical Engineer Madeleine Jones works as Deputy Operations Manager, Legacy Ponds & Silos at Sellafield, and is responsible for three nuclear facilities.
In her spare time, she is a passionate advocate of chemical engineering – promoting engineering to primary and secondary school children, and mentoring new engineering graduates at the nuclear reprocessing and decommissioning company, to inspire the next generation of chemical engineers.
She also actively volunteers for her professional engineering institution, IChemE, with roles including Student Representative on the Midlands Member Group Committee, and Webmaster for IChemE’s North West Member Group Committee.
For all of this – and more – she was recently awarded the Karen Burt Award, after being nominated by IChemE. The annual award is presented by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to a top Chartered Engineer or Chartered Physicist in memory of Dr Karen Burt.
Burt was a renowned physicist with a PhD in electron microscopy, who worked for British Aerospace Systems as a project engineer for scientific satellites. She produced some remarkable work in this field and many saw her as an inspiration for fighting to recover her speech and mobility after suffering a stroke.
In today’s blog, Madeleine explains her biggest career achievement so far, the importance of getting Chartered and why diversity in chemical engineering is key.
Name: Madeleine Jones
Current position: Deputy Operations Manager, Legacy Ponds & Silos, Sellafield
Studied: A Masters degree in Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry at Aston University
Bio: As part of my degree I worked on an industrial placement at Sellafield. On completion, I was offered a graduate position and have been progressing my career in various roles at the company since.
Why did you decide to become a chemical engineer and what interested you the most?
At school I always preferred the sciences. By the time I got to choose my A-Levels I knew I’d do best in Chemistry and Maths because they were the subjects I enjoyed most. I considered careers in chemistry, but they all seemed to be either lab-based bench chemistry or research (which I do not have the patience for!). I happened to meet a Chemical Engineer on a school trip and she explained what she did. I did a bit of investigation and it seemed to be the perfect combination of the sciences for me!
Tell me a bit about your career so far?
I studied for a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry at Aston University and decided to do an Industrial Placement as part of this. I gained a placement at Sellafield Ltd working on the site effluent and waste strategy, and at the end of the year was offered a graduate position.
After graduating I moved to Manchester and started work in Sellafield’s design office in Warrington. As a Graduate Process Design Engineer, my day-to-day work was asset care and improvements for existing plants and design work for new facilities. There are more than 200 nuclear facilities at Sellafield so I took the opportunity to move around the business whilst I was on the graduate scheme.
After the graduate scheme, I wanted to be a bit closer to the action so began training as a System Engineer in Cumbria. My system was a chemical process system in the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant where nuclear fuel from around the world is recycled. I was responsible for the overall reliability and availability of the system and making sure the maintenance was fit for purpose. The facility was nearing the end of its life and getting the right balance between continuous production and preventative maintenance was always a challenge.
I also volunteered for the company’s Emergency Response Team, which is called out in the event of a major incident at Sellafield. My responsibility was the information flow between the affected facilities and the main site emergency control centre. I also became part of the Crisis Management Support Team providing support to the Executive Team and business leaders.
After two years in Systems Engineering, I realised I particularly enjoyed was the fast-paced day-to-day problem solving and the excitement of responding to emergent issues, so I moved into my current role as Deputy Operations Manager in one of the legacy nuclear fuel storage facilities.
Can you explain what you do in your role at Sellafield?
Construction was started on the first nuclear facility at Sellafield in the 1940s and quite a few of the early buildings are still standing today. The First Generation Magnox Storage Pond (FGMSP) was built in the 1950s to store spent nuclear fuel under water before reprocessing. Over the following decades the pond has fallen into a state of disrepair and some of the cladding on the fuel has disintegrated and formed a radioactive sludge in the bottom of the pond. Work over the last 10 years has focussed on retrieving the fuel and sludge from the pond so we can decommission it.
I am Deputy Operations Manager for the Sludge Packaging Plant, which receives the sludge removed from the pond, and the Effluent Distribution Tanks, which receives and processes radioactive pond water from FGMSP and effluents from other legacy facilities.
Photo courtesy of AvaxHome
What’s your biggest career achievement to date?
My career so far has been so varied that it’s difficult to pin-point one specific thing. One of the things I’m proudest of is convincing the producer of a BBC documentary to film me talking about my role on site. He ended up using the clip in the programme and it was viewed by over a million people worldwide – what better way is there to publicise the profession and normalise women in engineering?
Why do you think it’s important that women should be involved in chemical engineering?
In any situation, in work and out, it is important to have a diverse range of personalities, skills, knowledge and backgrounds. If a profession or employer does not consider this, they cannot possibly operate to the best of their ability. For me, it’s not a question that we should still be answering, its common sense.
Why did you choose to get Chartered and what does being Chartered mean to you?
Being a Chartered engineer is an internationally recognised standard and demonstrates my competency. Throughout my career I’ve had people who have said I don’t do enough ‘traditional’ engineering (sizing pumps and using Computer Aided Design) and spend too much time getting involved in other stuff – whether that be university engagement or TV cameos! Achieving Chartered status shows that I’ve demonstrated my competence as an engineer whilst doing all those other things.
Why is it important to for chemical engineers to get Chartered?
Getting your degree (or any other qualification) is just the first step. Chartership demonstrates that you are a competent engineer in the real world and can apply all the stuff you learnt at university to deliver solutions to actual problems.
Is there anything you would recommend to someone considering a career in chemical, bio-chemical or process engineering?
The profession offers such a wide range of different career paths that it’s almost impossible not to find something you’d enjoy! When I look at my university cohort, five years since we graduated, we’re spread across the world all with different types of jobs – everything from insurance to oil rigs!

For more information about getting chartered visit the IChemE website.

Friday, October 20, 2017

NJDEP Revises Soil Remediation Standards Applicable to Historic Fill and Other Common Contaminants

On September 18th, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (“NJDEP”) revised its soil remediation standards for eighteen contaminants in response to new toxicology studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The revised standards became effective immediately; however, completed or nearly completed cleanups may be exempt from complying with certain of the new, more stringent standards in particular situations. Numeric standards for eleven constituents have increased and now are more lenient, and the standard for one constituent, thallium, was deleted entirely. Conversely, six other constituents now have more stringent standards. Parties responsible for ongoing cleanups should consider whether these new standards change the scope of their investigation or remediation. Parties responsible for completed cleanups also should consider whether a more stringent standard requires further action or whether a more lenient standard permits early termination of ongoing obligations associated with their cleanup. Properties containing historic fill material or that have been the site of operations utilizing solvents, such as dry cleaners, metal manufacturers and parts degreasers, are among the most likely to be affected by the new standards.

NJDEP established more lenient standards for seven different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (“PAHs”), which are common contaminants and often are found in contaminated historic fill material throughout the state. The strict soil remediation standards for PAHs triggered significant remediation obligations at many of these historic fill sites, even though those sites themselves had not been subject to intensive industrial use. The typical remediation approach is placing a cap of clean soil, asphalt, or some other barrier on top of the historic fill and recording a deed notice notifying potential buyers that the site is contaminated. Notably, a party responsible for maintaining a historic fill cap that is no longer necessary under the new standards can obtain relief from the long-term remedial action permit compliance obligations and associated costs, including the requirement to post financial assurance, pay annual fees, conduct biennial certifications and monitor and maintain the cap itself. Similarly, owners of property with a deed notice for historic fill can remove the deed notice, after obtaining NJDEP’s permission, if their property complies with the new, more lenient standards for PAHs.

The soil remediation standards for tetrachloroethene (“PCE”), historically used by dry cleaners, metal manufacturers, and parts degreasers, increased substantially. However, in practice, this change may have a less significant impact on responsible parties’ remediation costs than the change in the PAH standards, as the extent of remediation of PCE-contaminated soil often is driven by the impact to groundwater standard developed for each particular site, which can be stricter than both the old and new soil remediation standards for PCE. Nevertheless, the new standard for PCE will reduce the burden of soil remediation in situations where the impact to groundwater standard does not apply or where site-specific factors cause the impact to groundwater standard to exceed the new PCE soil remediation standard.

Parties responsible for property impacted by the six constituents subject to more stringent soil remediation standards have the less enviable task of determining the increased cost of these new obligations. The six constituents with more stringent standards are 1,1’-biphenyl; cyanide; hexachloroethane; nitrobenzene; pentachlorophenol; and trichloroethene (“TCE”). TCE, formerly a commonly used solvent, is the most prevalent of these constituents. As with PCE, however, the extent of remediation of TCE often depends on the still unchanged and generally more stringent impact to groundwater standard, so the practical impact of the more restrictive soil remediation standards for TCE may not be significant.

For sites undergoing investigation or remediation where one of these six constituents is present, the scope of the investigation or remediation may expand. However, sites where hexachloroethane, nitrobenzene (residential sites only), pentachlorophenol, and TCE are present may take advantage of a “phase-in period” which excuses the responsible party from the new, stricter requirements. Where the remediation standard decreased by less than an order of magnitude, i.e., a factor of ten, which is the case for the contaminants listed above, the party responsible can avail itself of the old, more lenient remediation standard if it submits its remedial action report or remedial action workplan to NJDEP before March 18, 2018.

Remediated sites that are subject to either a no further action letter (“NFA”) from NJDEP or a response action outcome (“RAO”) from a Licensed Site Remediation Professional can be reopened and subject to further clean up, but only where the new remediation standard differs from the previous standard by more than an order of magnitude. The soil remediation standards for 1,1’-biphenyl, cyanide, and nitrobenzene (non-residential sites only) decreased by more than an order of magnitude. Property owners or parties otherwise responsible for sites with an NFA or RAO for these constituents should seek advice regarding the need for further remediation, as the failure to do so could lead to penalties from NJDEP or difficult questions from prospective purchasers performing due diligence if the property is offered for sale.

Whether an environmental investigation recently has begun or a remediation has been completed for many years, parties responsible for property with historic fill or property impacted by the other constituents mentioned in this article should consider the impact of the new soil remediation standards on their obligations under New Jersey law.