The Great Stour Project - River Pollution

Old Landfill waste disposal (brownfield sites)

Land is said to be contaminated when substances are present at concentrations that could be harmful to human life, wildlife or the environment as a whole.

To pose a risk of contamination there must be:

• a source of contamination
• a pathway of migration
• a specific target

Old landfill provides a ready pollution 'source'; the slope of the ground and water table generate the 'pathway'; the nearby river is the pollution 'target'.

The precise scale and nature of contaminated land in urban areas is often unknown, because there may be few written records of old landfill and other disused 'brownfield' industrial sites; local authorities and the Environment Agency will try to compile registers of these as accurately as is possible. Brownfield industrial sites in the Canterbury area, including old waste disposal landfill, provide good opportunities for redevelopment on the outskirts of the city. The Sturry Road park-and-ride car park is a good example. Many of these local sites are close to the River Great Stour, including:

Slow degradation of compostable materials beneath the Sturry Road park-and-ride site is currently releasing ammonia leachate from below. Degradation of old landfill material is a slow process; disposed solids in old waste tips might only reach a final, stable unpolluting state after about 30 years. Meanwhile, discharge of leachate has to be collected in a sump, treated and released slowly into the river under consented agreement with the Environment Agency. Other examples of local brownfield redevelopments (e.g. Safeways, Wincheap) have revealed the presence of contaminated soil, which needs to be carefully removed to avoid pollution of watercourses during the construction phase.

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