Evaluating and managing impacts on future or existing structures from future climate change/Sea Level Rise (SLR) is important for maintaining operational viability for critical structures and facilities into the future. Assessments are being conducted nationally and regionally throughout the United States to assess and plan for managing impacts to major industrial facilities and municipal infrastructure systems Various agencies require that SLR be considered when permitting major projects to address climate adaptation and resiliency strategies. Planning would require a vulnerability assessment and identifying the risks that climate change poses. Based on the requirements and future risk Geosyntec Consultants was retained to conduct a vulnerability assessment and liability risk analysis at inactive waste management units at a coastal California refinery. The project was precedent setting with the local regulatory agencies and helped to frame the agency policy on waste management units in the San Francisco Bay area. This presentation will describe the business and environmental drivers, the SLR and vulnerability assessment process, regulatory outcomes and the process for adaptation

Anju Wicke, Senior Principal, Geosyntec Consultants
Anju Wicke is a Senior Principal with Geosyntec Consultants in the San Francisco Bay Area with over 25 years of experience in the environmental consulting industry. Her focus has been on program management and strategic technical input for large complex investigation and remediation projects within sediment, coastal and upland environments in the United States and Canada. She has led projects under United States and Canadian regulatory programs with oversight from federal and state governments, regulators, and the public.

Currently she resides in California and is managing a program of upland remediation sites for the Port of Stockton, shoreline and sediment investigations for coastal agencies within the State of California and is involved in Geosyntec’s National practice area around resiliency and adaptation, helping lead the efforts for California. Anju has her undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego in Biological Sciences and her master’s in environmental sciences from the University of San Francisco.

In Canada, over a quarter of the total federal contaminated sites inventory is comprised of sites impacted by petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC). Decisions made around technology selection for management of PHC sites, when considered on a larger scale and number of sites, can impact the changing climate, most notably through the carbon footprint of activities for site investigation and remediation. We present the climate change challenge in terms of 1) sustainable remediation for reducing the environmental footprint; and, 2) adapting to the climate change impacts by considering remedial timeframes and performance monitoring of remedial systems.

Based on applied research at PHC release sites and evaluation of large database studies, the role of natural attenuation on the resulting groundwater plume lengths and longevity has been well documented with guidance and tools developed specifically for the evaluation of monitored natural attenuation (MNA) as a remedial option. While the focus has been on processes occurring in the saturated zone and impacts to groundwater, review of literature and guidance support the greater role of natural depletion processes and pathways in the vadose zone.

We present an overview of the natural source zone depletion processes and pathways and review the tools and methods for the quantification of these rates. The tools and methods are presented in a site management framework, where estimates of depletion rates can be used as metrics for more efficient and sustainable remediation of PHC sites. In this framework, quantifiable metrics such as depletion rates and remedial timeframes under natural and enhanced attenuation are used to inform decision making both in the selection and performance monitoring of remedial systems. A key objective is to use quantitative metrics for transitioning from active remedial systems to less resource-intensive approaches based on enhanced and in-situ bioremediation.

Parisa Jourabchi, Founder and Principal, ARIS Environmental Ltd.
Parisa Jourabchi (Ph.D., P.Eng.) is the founder and principal of ARIS Environmental Ltd. who brings a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to site investigation and remediation. Parisa holds a Bachelor of engineering physics and Masters in geophysics from University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in biogeochemistry from Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Parisa conducts applied research on projects that include assessment of natural source zone depletion (NSZD) rates at petroleum hydrocarbon sites, vapour intrusion, and the development of toolkits for the evaluation of monitored natural attenuation (MNA), NZSD, remedial technologies and sustainability. She contributes to guidance development and has extensive experience in the application of numerical and analytical models to vapour intrusion, methane migration, MNA, and NSZD.

Climate change represents a long-term challenge, but there are also immediate needs. The recent publication of “Canada’s Changing Climate Report” (Natural Resources Canada, 2019) points out that past and future warming in Canada is on average twice the level of warming around the world. By comparison, Canada’s North has warmed and will continue to warm at more than twice the pace of the global rate. The average annual temperature in the North has increased by 2.3oC between 1948 and 2016. The consequences of this warming are many and include thawing and destabilization of the permafrost, changes in ice dynamics, sea level rise, coastal erosion and an increased risk for extreme weather and forest fires.

The management of contaminated sites in regions covered with permafrost has always been complex due to difficulties involving access, infrastructure and limited services, extreme weather conditions and the need to take into account the interest of Indigenous populations. However, within the context of climate change, the challenges are even more complex, since we can no longer rely on the confinement properties of permafrost.

AECOM has been supporting the government in the management of federal contaminated sites in the North for more than 25 years, including the Distant Early Warning network (DEW) and other abandoned military installations, as well as several major mine closing projects. During this period, technical approaches have evolved to include structural and non-structural adaptation measures in the design, operations and contaminated site maintenance phases. Although new technologies have been developed for investigation and tracking, traditional ecological knowledge has also been integrated in order to understand the local changes that have already been observed. This presentation will rely on a series of case studies to illustrate the evolution of federal contaminated site management, a critical component of adaptation to climate change in the North.

Joanna Eyquem, Climate Change Practice Lead, Canada, and Climate Change and Resilience Technical Practice Group Leader, AECOM
Joanna Eyquem is the Climate Change Practice lead for Canada and the Climate Change and Resilience Technical Practice Group leader for AECOM worldwide. She has extensive knowledge in the field of climate change science, natural hazard management and adaptation planning. Joanna is professionally qualified in both Canada and the UK and has been working since 2001 to ensure development projects take into account future natural processes. Her work at AECOM includes coordinating a team of multidisciplinary climate adaptation and mitigation specialists across the country, as well as assessing historic and projected future climate conditions and working with clients to assess their vulnerabilities and risks and subsequently to develop adaptation plans to manage those climate risks. Clients include infrastructure owners, municipalities, government bodies and private companies across Canada, including the North where the need for climate change adaptation is most immediate.

Lake Superior, Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario set new record high water levels over the summer of 2019, with lakes Michigan and Huron 2.5 cm or less off their 100-year highs. In July, lakes Erie and Ontario broke their monthly records by more than 10 cm. Storms over lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior caused beach erosion, flooding and damage to seawalls and roads.

Water levels have not always been this high, however, with record low levels observed on lakes Michigan and Huron in 2013, part of an erratic pattern that could become normalized with our changing climate. It’s important to examine and understand the drivers behind the fluctuating lake levels and how the warming climate fits in. The height of each lake is determined by net basin supply (NBS), which is evaporation subtracted from the sum of precipitation and runoff into the lakes. When the inflow (precipitation and runoff) is greater than evaporation, you get rising lakes. If the evaporation exceeds the inflow, lakes drop.

With expected continued high lake water levels in the Great Lakes basin well into 2020 as predicted now by a number of stakeholders and ongoing lakefront developments, there will be a need and political will to improve water balance management and flood protection measures across many jurisdictions. When these measures are combined with urban renewal, infrastructure improvements and brownfield redevelopment opportunities, exciting new projects such as the Port Lands Toronto Don River re-alignment, the Toronto Islands, and the Big U in New York City can happen. Using these large projects and other global examples as a backdrop, the presentation explores the various complex factors that make these urban renewal projects a success and reviews the challenges involved. A detailed “to do tricks” matrix for planners and implementation engineers is examined in detail and a stakeholder engagement model is presented.

Questions such as "who is to judge what is safe enough?", "what are interesting and innovative examples of land use and multi-functional land use planning?", "what are the real interesting brownfield opportunities?" and "where will the money for all this come from??" for these projects will be discussed in detail.

René de Vries, Arcadis Canada
René de Vries, P.Geo. is an Environmental Geo-Scientist and Entrepreneur with 30 years of international environmental consulting experience. As part of the global Arcadis team and Canadian management team, he develops and helps deliver larger projects integrating sound environmental practices in water, building, and infrastructure projects.

Climate change poses many risks to the health and well-being of Canadians and their communities. While there is a high awareness of the risks from extreme weather events such as storms and flooding, longer term changes in temperature can also affect the toxicity and uptake of certain pollutants. Such changes, along with changing precipitation patterns and water availability, may also have impacts on, for example, infrastructure, natural landscapes and the wellness of populations. In order to better manage and remediate contaminated sites, increase resilience to the effects of climate change and plan adaptation strategies, environmental professionals need to understand how the climate is changing. This requires access to reliable, timely and relevant climate data and associated information. This presentation introduces the Canadian Centre for Climate Services (CCCS), which was established to provide Canadians with information and support to consider climate change in their decisions.

This session will also focus on ClimateData.ca, a user-friendly online climate data source, which has brought together the expertise of national and regional climate service providers. The presentation will provide an overview of the data, tools, information and services necessary to help understand, plan for the impacts of, and adapt to, climate change.

Abderrahmane Yagouti, Manager, Canadian Centre for Climate Services, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Abderrahmane (Abder) Yagouti is Manager at the Canadian Centre for Climate Services of Environment and Climate Change Canada. He has the responsibility to develop, in collaboration with key partners and stakeholders, climate and impact-related data and products to support adaptation decision-making and planning. Abder has been working in the field of climate change adaptation since 2003 with a focus on climate change and health impacts and he has developed multidisciplinary expertise including climate data analysis, heat health impacts and climate change-related program design and delivery. Abder has been involved in national and international initiatives that aim to build resilience and increase community capacity to face climate change impacts.

Canada’s coastal communities have been identified as one of twelve areas most at risk by climate change over the next twenty years. Sea level rise, changes in the frequency and intensity of storms, increases in precipitation, increases in erosion, and warmer ocean temperatures will have dramatic effects that may lead to significant losses, damages, or disruptions in coastal areas. The assessment and remediation of contaminated sites on the island of Newfoundland is an area that may be vulnerable to these implications of climate change and extreme weather events.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) currently has over 1,600 sites in the Federal Contaminated Sites Inventory in Newfoundland and Labrador, a majority of which are associated with light stations, small craft harbours, and other infrastructure near the coast. Some of these sites are in various stages of the ten-step decision making framework for federal contaminated sites in Canada while others have been closed following the same process.

Climate change is an important consideration for sites actively being assessed, remediated, or risk managed as well as sites that have already been closed under the ten-step process. Sea-level rise and storm surges may lead to inundation of sites along vulnerable areas of the coast of Newfoundland. The assessment, remediation, and management of contaminated sites in Newfoundland is based on risk based remedial objectives which consider the chemical toxicology, fate and transport properties, bioavailability, and uptake of chemicals to human and ecological receptors, all of which may be affected by the higher projected global temperatures. Therefore, consideration of climate change at each step of the ten-step decision making framework is essential to building and assuring resiliency of contaminated sites projects to climate change.

This presentation will discuss the potential effects of climate change on the assessment and management of contaminated sites with particular emphasis on coastal sites managed by DFO in Newfoundland. Climate change will be discussed within the context of the ten-step decision making framework required to address federal contaminated sites in Canada including examples with a high-level discussion on a strategy to manage active and closed contaminated sites considering climate change.

Natasha Corrin, Senior Risk Assessor, CBCL Limited
Natasha Corrin is a professional engineer and senior risk assessor with 20 years of experience. She currently reviews and provides senior technical input into projects related to human health and ecological risk assessment and risk management for contaminated sites. In this role, her responsibilities include planning and designing site-specific human health and ecological risk assessments, particularly complex risk assessments that involve consumption of country foods and/or emerging contaminants. She provides senior technical advice and oversight to project teams and acts as the senior technical lead for risk assessment on complex multi-disciplinary projects. With extensive experience at federal contaminated sites, Natasha has managed risk assessment projects and portfolios for numerous custodial departments in various provinces. Additionally, she has conducted peer reviews on behalf of Public Services and Procurement Canada and the Department of National Defence. Natasha believes in a holistic approach to managing federal contaminated sites and collaborates closely with clients and other stakeholders on all projects so that project objectives are achieved efficiently. She enjoys coming up with creative solutions to the evaluation and management of federal contaminated sites to ensure that practical and scientifically defensible approaches to site clean-up and closure are applied.