Scenario and Presentation
ENVS 829 Pollution Control and Waste Management Scenarios
Scenario 3
Hydrocarbons and other chemicals in wastewater discharge from a military airbase:
This undisclosed government facility has a fuel depot with bowsers and gantries (for filling large tankers used to fuel aircraft) and a large storage depot. Additionally there is a firefighting training centre on site who need to actively train and simulate events.
Each of these are bunded areas but their discharge is into either stormwater or into trade-waste, neither of which are acceptable to the local authorities due to the high pollutant load. The facility is being required (at present) by the local council to guarantee their discharge will meet
How would these problems be best addressed?
Your environmental consulting company has been hired as experts dealing with contaminated areas and need to be discrete with how you handle this situation
This assessment consists of group work on a scenario. Students will be assessed on their teamwork, preparation and presentation of the work items listed below.
The assessment is worth 25% with a peer review of participation and performance influencing your final mark. A paper copy of the group presentation slides (including reference slide/s) will be provided to the lecturer at the time of presenting.
Requirements
1. Group work items to be addressed
The group work requires students to:
- review a scenario and determine the key issue/s that need to be addressed and essential regulatory requirements for the relevant pollution control or waste management system;
- develop a plan for obtaining background monitoring information, collection of information for necessary possible consultant review and to provide definition of the problem/process;
- review the literature and any government requirements for relevant potential techniques, equipment or systems that are likely to be required;
- make a preliminary assessment of the likely effectiveness of such techniques, equipment or systems (this should include reviewing options, potential problems or possible side effects, cost-effectiveness, appreciate the need for corporate capital and operating inputs, any confounding influences within the system);
- source possible providers/suppliers/consultants/engineers and compare their information in light of the above points;
- prepare and outline a management plan for the operation, maintenance and monitoring of the relevant technique, equipment or system;
- identify the likely types of risks encountered in the operation, maintenance, monitoring of such techniques (this will be a high level risk assessment), equipment or systems and specify the audit requirements for periodic checking of environmental performance.
Please provide a budget of the broad relative costs associated with the management strategies. This should be sufficient to inform the decision making process. Similarly with the CAPEX and OPEX costs, a broad view needs to be taken i.e. don’t put in place a $1M solution for a $150K budget/requirement.
Please agree within your group the work breakdown and allocation of tasks. The aim is for students to be able to present the information as if they were providing a presentation to management to cover all the issues required for approval and funding within the organisation or to the client.
2. Presentation
Not all team members will be expected to present but a group mark will be allocated based on the presentation. The overall presentation will be approximately 20 minutes (18 minutes + question time). This will allow enough time to cover all components outlined above. Please prepare for questions to be asked by the audience. The marking rubric for the presentation is on the unit’s iLearn Week 12 page.
3. Peer review
Each team member will complete an online peer review of their fellow group members using the Sparkplus programme. This must be completed by the friday of the presentation (1st Nov.), failure to do so result in a late penalty. Details on how to complete this and a link to Sparkplus will be available on the units iLearn site.