Talking Gasworks with Emma Geering
Who: Emma Geering
Role: Senior Remediation Scientist
Site: Imperial Gasworks, Fulham
How did your career path begin?
It started with an interest in Chemistry at school. After graduating from university, I spent a few years in a laboratory role. As a country girl, I felt the calling to an environmental role. I found a position with QDS and started conducting lab trials on soils and water to find the right blends of chemical oxidants and other remediation ingredients. I didn’t see the bigger picture of remediation until I started getting more involved with groundwater sampling and monitoring, and that’s how I made it out of the lab and into my role today. Having both backgrounds (lab and site) benefits my role immensely.
At Fulham, what does your role comprise of?
One of my primary duties is to ensure that Soilfix are complying with the remediation strategy in terms of validation sampling and overseeing the waste removed from site. Also, liaising with our client’s environmental consultant, and keeping them updated with our progress.
We have a water treatment system on-site to discharge to sewer, so I am involved in ensuring we are sampling the water and complying with the consent issued by Thames Water. I also ensure our Mobile Treatment Permit issued by the Environment Agency is complied with. Making sure that everything we say we are going to do is done and that Soilfix are fully compliant.
Mobile Water Treatment System
The mobile water treatment system involved at Fulham, Phase 3, is primarily used for treating contaminated water extracted from pipes, vessels and underground obstructions before excavation can commence. My role is to ensure that we comply with what we are treating and discharging to foul sewer.
Have you worked on a Gasworks project before?
This is my first time working on a Groundworks/Gasworks project. I usually work on in-situ remediation projects such as the firmer fuel depot at Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire and Pedro Street, Hackney, London, recently completed by Soilfix.
The Fulham gasworks project is a real learning curve of materials management, waste classification, and finding waste disposal routes that avoid sending soils to landfill.
Carrying out my role and sharing the working area on a large project like Fulham means that everyone is fighting for space. The area in which we operate is constantly changing in size as the site progresses through the programme. However, this allows me to engage frequently with our Client and Environment Consultant, which ordinarily, on other sites, a Project Manager would take responsibility for, so in effect, very good experience for me!
… The next phase
Our close-knit team of technical and operational staff has led to a successful delivery of works on Phase 3 to date. The ability to work through problems to find solutions, and streamline operations throughout the project, has put us in good stead ahead of the next phase commencing.
I’m really proud of what I have contributed to the project so far, not only by drawing on my own experience but how I have been supported by the Soilfix project team who have helped me learn quickly on what is my first major groundworks project.
