NCLOG Lead Forum

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This Lead Forum is a half-day event hosted by the National Contaminated Land Officers Group (NCLOG). The first session of the day will provide an introduction to lead and its health impacts, including exposure in children. The second session will look at dealing with lead through planning and Part 2A, hearing case studies from across the UK. Finally the event will conclude with a panel discussion with all speakers.

The National Contaminated Land Officers Group (NCLOG) is part of the IES. All local authority officers working in contaminated land can join NCLOG for free. If you would like to join please contact the NCLOG Coordinator Ellie Savage (ellie@the-ies.org).

Our speakers

Session 1

Sarah Dack, UKHSA: Lead – still a risk to public health

Sarah has over 30 years experience in the contaminated land and risk assessment industry and has spent the last 12 years working for UKHSA.  Since joining UKHSA, she has been heavily involved in cases of lead in children and adults, after a death of a child from lead poisoning in Yorkshire.  Although lead cases may not seem very related to contaminated land, they often need a deep dive to identify the source(s) of exposure, not dissimilar to putting together a CSM, and trying to collate all relevant contaminant linkages.  Sarah is a chartered geologist and has carried out risk assessments for industry and government (e.g. EU, World Bank and EA) and has latterly been involved with EU and UK research via NIHR or the EU COST Action.

Dr Louise Ander, BGS - Normal background concentrations of lead in UK 

Louise led the development of the normal background concentration values, and continues to work on areas relating to the way in which geology influences our soil and water composition, and ensuring that this forms the basis for understanding these environmental variables. She is based in the Groundwater team, in BGS offices near Nottingham.

Session 2

Robert Tyler, RBKC: Dealing with lead through Part 2A – RBKC Lead Grenfell Investigation
Robert has dealt with contaminated land in local government for 25 years, with over 15 years spent working in London. Apart from the full range of Part 2A and planning work, career highlights have included working on the 2012 Olympics (whilst at LB Hackney), more recently being directly involved in the Grenfell Environmental Checks process (at RB Kensington and Chelsea) and serving the communities he’s worked for. Robert is on the steering group of the West and East London Land Contamination Officers Group (WELLCOG), attends the National Brownfield Forum and has previously served as a committee member on the Geological Society Land Contamination Group and the National Contaminated Land Officer’s Group.

Alan Yendell, SEPA - Understanding and Reducing Lead Pollution in the Wanlock Water
Alan is a Contaminated Land Specialist at SEPA and has 21 years of experience working in the industry.  Starting out with a small consultancy in Glasgow he gained varied experience from work on numerous brownfield sites in Scotland undertaking site investigation, risk assessment and remediation.  After a short stint in the wind farm development industry he moved to BAE Systems in-house geo-environmental team at the former munitions factory at Bishopton, specialising in water environment risk assessment and managing remediation works.  Since joining SEPA in 2014 on top of the ‘day job’ he has become heavily involved in supporting delivery of the River Basin Management Plan objectives to understand sources of pollution from historic metal mines and is opening up funding opportunities and developing partnerships to deliver remediation work, reduce the scale of the pollution from abandoned metal mines, and improve waterbody classification. 

Louise Siddorn, NWR: Wales Metal Mine Programme – Abandoned Lead Mines
Louise is a Lead Specialist Advisor for Abandoned Mines at Natural Resources Wales (NRW), working within the Wales Metal Mines Programme. Louise specialises in the legacy impacts of historical metal mining and the challenges posed by metal contamination in the environment. This includes defining the scale and nature of metal pollution from abandoned mine sites, developing robust conceptual site models, and supporting the planning and delivery of intervention works to reduce pollution. Prior to joining NRW six years ago, Louise had over 16 years’ experience as a Contaminated Land Officer and formerly an Environmental Consultant.

Header image: Removing Lead Paint on Window @Jamie Hooper via Adobe Stock