Resolving the HCH and Lindane issues in the EU

What is the project assignment?

Under the name 'HCH in the EU', the European Commission has commissioned the consortium with Tauw as lead consultant to identify the contaminated sites with HCH in the EU Member States and to provide a full roadmap for sustainable management of six selected HCH contaminated sites. 

HCH (Lindane) was produced between 1945 and 2000 and used as an insecticide and against parasites in both veterinary and human applications. Eight to twelve tons of waste isomers were produced for every ton of lindane. We now know that these are Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and are harmful to humans or the environment and resulted in November 2006 to ban the use of Lindane in 52 countries. 

Cooperation during the project

The consortium consists of Tauw, CDM Smith Europe GmbH from Germany and Sociedad Aragonesa de Gestión Agroambiental (SARGA) S.L.U from Spain. Because the project consists of many different (international) parties and locations, good cooperation and sharing of information is essential. To facilitate this, the project uses tailor-made digital environments including a Geographic Information Model (GIM) to collect, organise, store, interpret, assess and report all inventory data from the different locations. The GIM Viewer is available to the project team members, the European Commission, stakeholders and will be public to other stakeholder and interested. 

Result 

This project will soon have two results: 

• First, the project will comprise of a comprehensive inventory of sites in all the EU member states where HCH was produced, stored, landfilled, treated and may or may not have polluted the soil and groundwater. This will result in country-specific lists of (potential) HCH-affected sites in all 27 EU Member States. 
• The second part of the project will be the consultancy services to map the needs for each HCH contaminated sites to manage these locations sustainably once and for all. We will make a roadmap and action plan, organise workshops, and deliver environmental consulting services.