Optimisation of soil and water
monitoring for long-term
maintenance of remediation effects

The Pilot Action delivered by the Municipality of Solec Kujawski is focusing on the area of a former wood preservation plant close to the city centre.

  • Characteristics of the brownfield:
    • The Solec Kujawski brownfield is the site of the former wood preservation factory (approximately 16,44 ha) for which in years 2013-2016 remediation was carried out using funds from the European Union Operational Programme ‘Infrastructure and Environment’ and for which pilot environmental monitoring tools are needed  
    • This area is close to the city centre and near the largest housing estate and recreation and sports facilities
    • The ownership of the site is public: the land was purchased in 2008 by the Municipality of Solec Kujawski

  • Main issues/problems:
    • Poor quality of groundwater: the presence of heavy non-aqueous liquid (DNAPL) was indicated after several drillings carried out in 2013 and 2015. It was detected that the DNAPL is very slowly migrating from the area of former contamination sources
    • On the south side of the area there is a flow of water similarly heavily contaminated with BTEX, PAHs and phenols from a different old post-industrial area

  • Needs and Goals:
    Diagnosis type of contamination in waters, monitoring of changes in concentration, directions of migration, composition are necessary to develop a project to stop and eliminate the threat.

  • Activities, achievements and results:

    The activities carried out within the Pilot Action consisted in establishing an environmental monitoring system of soil and water of the former wood preservation plant brownfield in order to monitor the effectiveness of the undertaken remediation techniques and elaborating documents focusing on data obtained from the performed monitoring: six measurement campaigns for groundwater and two campaigns for soil, aimed determining the concentrations of PAH and BTEX, were carried out by drilling wells and piezometers on the inflow and outflow of groundwater.
    The results received from the samples uptake allowed to prepare a report on improvement of remediation: this analysis directly contributes to identify and plan the most suitable, sustainable method to carry out further remediation of the brownfield.
    A land management concept of the site, including three different investment variants which could be developed in the area with economic and technical specifications, and a brownfield database with the collected data were drafted.

  • Involvement of stakeholders:
    Local meetings were organized with inhabitants and stakeholders to involve them in the delivery of the Pilot Action.

    Pilot Action Report

Programme

Priorities

Results

Support