TRACK 2, DAY 1
Proposed Excess Soil Beneficial Reuse Exemption for Asphalt Contaminated Soil & SWM Pond Sediment: How Can AI be Used to Identify Asphalt Sources?
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 | 1:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. | Hall F
ABSTRACT
The 2005-2024 Canadian SWM pond sediment chemistry survey results demonstrate that beneficial reuse of sediment collected from over 90% of 121 SWM ponds would require a waste management Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) due to PHC contamination from road asphalt sources.
However, published literature including ecotoxicity testing have also demonstrated that asphalt contaminated sediments have negligible beneficial reuse health risks.
The Ontario Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks (MECP) has recently issued proposed amendments to O.Reg. 406/19, which effectively exempts asphalt PHC contaminated soil and SWM pond sediment from current waste management ECA requirements, provided that they can be beneficially reused within existing asphalt environments, such as roadside landscaping materials.
The MECP document states that a qualified person (QP) must determine if the sediment exceeds excess soil quality standards (ESQS) for PHC due to the presence of an asphalt source, as opposed to higher risk PHC sources such as gasoline, diesel fuel, engine oil, etc.
This presentation will demonstrate how PHC forensic identification methods were used to identify asphalt sources in over 321 sediment samples.
We will also discuss how the current sediment chemistry database is being used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) software to automate asphalt identifications in soil and SWM pond sediments, in order to enhance safe beneficial reuse opportunities throughout Ontario.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Francine Kelly-Hooper, GHD
Dr. Francine Kelly-Hooper is GHD’s Canadian Sediment Lead and Hydrocarbon Forensic Specialist with over 20 years of experience in the government and private sectors.
Francine completed her PhD at the University of Waterloo in 2013, where she developed a method for identifying petroleum hydrocarbon sources in soils and sediments. Her 15-year Canada wide SWM pond sediment survey has compiled chemistry profiles for 321 samples collected from 121 ponds.
Francine and her team continue to work with government agencies on the development of a new approach to SWM sediment beneficial use evaluations.
Kandasamy Sivasubramanian, GHD
Kandasamy is a Data Scientist working in the Advanced Analytics & AI team at GHD.
He has 4+ years of experience in deriving insights from data using AI in environment, transportation, and water sectors. He is skilled at geospatial analysis, predictive modeling and visualization using Python, PowerBI and ESRI ArcGIS products.
Kandasamy’s multi-faceted background in civil and environmental engineering and data science has helped him work seamlessly with domain knowledge experts to understand business problems and conceive innovative strategies to tackle them. Identifying patterns in data and translating them back to relatable solutions that can be easily understood by industry leaders is his core skill.
He is currently working with Francine to build a database of chromatogram samples and use AI to be able to classify them and identify the source product.
Ian Collins, GHD
Ian Collins is a senior environmental risk assessor and engineering leader at GHD. He is a Professional Engineer with twenty years of experience in human health and ecological risk assessments.
Mr. Collins has undertaken numerous federal and provincial human health and ecological risk assessments for mine sites and brownfields in Ontario, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland using CCME, CSA N288.6 12, FCSAP, Health Canada, the Saskatchewan Environmental Code, and similar methodologies, as well as under Ontario Regulation 153/04.
These risk assessments have involved evaluating potential human health and ecological risks due to chemical and/or radiological contamination in terrestrial, riparian, and aquatic environments.
In addition, he has worked with developing strategies for beneficial reuse of road sweepings and stormwater management pond sediments, and he has developed site specific computer models for the derivation of geochemical source terms and water quality predictions for a variety of nuclear and mining industry sites.