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Items of
Interest
1.
Another
new degree program in Environmental Forensics is being
offered from the School of Natural Sciences at Edith Cowan
University (ECU) in Joondalup, Western Australia!
For more information, please
click here.
2.
Environmental Forensics Editorial Board Member Awarded CCPE Scholarship to Study PDBEs in the Artic Environment
Monica Danon-Schaffer, M.Eng.,
P. Eng., a member of the Environmental Forensics Editorial
Board has been awarded a prestigious Canadian Council of
Professional Engineers (CCPE) Manulife Financial
Scholarship.
Six cash prizes totaling
$55,000 are awarded yearly by the CCPE to reward
excellence in the Canadian engineering profession and to
support advanced studies and research. To be eligible,
candidates must be registered as a professional engineer (P.Eng./ing.)
in good standing with the provincial/territorial
professional association/order in their
province/territory.
Ms. Danon-Schaffer is now
pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University
of British Columbia. For her research, she is
investigating a compound called Polybrominated Diphenyl
Ethers (PBDEs) used in many common items including
computers, televisions and upholstery. Ms. Danon-Schaffer
hopes her study will lead to the discovery of the sources
of PDBEs in Canada. She also wants to draw the attention
of authorities such as the Government of Canada, the
Arctic Council and the Inuit Circumpolar Conference to the
affect of PDBEs on the Arctic environment.
Ms. Danon-Schaffer is licensed
as an engineer in both British Columbia and Ontario, and
is employed by NovaTec Consultants, Inc. in Vancouver.
For more information, go to:
http://www.ccpe.ca/e/prog_awards_2.cfm#Recipients
3. Forensic
Isotope Ratio Mass Spectometry (FIRMS) Network has
released
Forensic Isotope Ratio Mass
Spectrometry Network – Technical Strategy. 2003.
Prepared by Dr. Susan A. Phillips and Sean Doyle of the
Forensic Explosives Laboratory, Dstl Fort Halstead,
Sevenoaks, Kent, England
The goal of the network is to
bring together IRMS researchers, end users and instrument
manufacturers. For more information go to:
http://www.forensic-isotopes.rdg.ac.uk/
4. World's
First Degree in Environmental Forensics!
Students are about to enroll
on the world's first ever degree course in Environmental
Forensics. This degree extends the University of Wales,
Bangor's excellent reputation for teaching and research in
environmental disciplines.
In a pro-active move to ensure
that the UK has the skills to cope with anticipated
changes in environmental legislation, Dr Stephen Mudge at
the University of Wales, Bangor's School of Ocean
Sciences, has developed the new degree in Environmental
Forensics. Dr Mudge is one of the UK's leading
environmental forensics experts. The degree will fill an
urgent and growing need for multi-disciplinary graduates
with the ability to play biological, physical or chemical
detective to explain the cause or source of changes to any
given ecosystem. Principally needed in environmental
protection and remediation, other industries and
environmental management agencies also increasingly need
personnel who possess these multi-disciplinary analytical
skills.
Currently European legislation
means that the polluter pays an often paltry fine for
pollution incidents. Mudge predicts that European
legislation is set to converge with current US practices.
In the US, the polluter pays the hefty clean up costs of
any incidents. There, multi-billion dollar law suits to
ascertain responsibility for clean up costs following
recent or not so recent pollution incidents are not
uncommon. Changes to European legislation will require
personnel with credible and established expertise in
'traceability', to ascertain who or what caused the
pollution and when.
As Mudge explains, "The legal
framework in Europe will probably move towards the
'polluter remediates' principle taken in the US. In this
situation, it is vital to establish the source of the
pollution to determine who is responsible for its
remediation, whether a previous owner of a piece of
contaminated land or an adjacent piece of land. The need
to establish original cause of any form of pollution calls
for a greater number and level of environmental forensic
experts to deal with such cases."
"There are also wider
applications. Currently, scientist from various
disciplines and working for a range of governmental
agencies or consultancies are increasingly becoming
involved in this type of work. The forensic side requires
a broad multi-disciplinary tool kit. The forensic skills
are the same whether the situation involves the classic
industrial pollution and clean up of 'brown' industrial
land, establishing the cause of a decline in fisheries
stock, whether caused by overfishing, the effects of
agricultural 'run off' or the introduction of an alien
biological organism, to tracing the likely source of a
river or estuarine pollution incident.
The International Society of
Environmental Forensics has welcomed the creation of this
new Environmental Forensics degree at the University of
Wales, Bangor. Dr Stephen Mudge, who developed the degree
course is also an Associate Editor of the International
Journal of Environmental Forensics.
"The innovative degree in
Environmental Forensics offered by the University of
Wales, Bangor is an enlightened response to the global
demand for environmental forensics information," said
Robert Morrison, Editor of the International Society of
Environmental Forensics.
"The degree represents the
first institution offering this cutting edge information
to the next generation of environmental scientists. The
University of Wales, Bangor and especially Dr. Stephen
Mudge, are applauded for their recognition of this need
and for the creative program designed to provide this
knowledge," he added.
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