Excavated soil reuse tools developed as part of the French soil management framework

Céline Blanc (1) , Dominique Darmendrail (1) , Laurent Rouvreau (1) , Mathilde Scamps (1) , Geoffrey Boissard (1)

1 BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)

Following the revision and transposition of the EU Waste Framework Directive into the French legal framework, it has been essential to define guidance and methods for sustainable reuse of excavated soils which would ensure human health and environmental protection. One provision of the European Directive sets that excavated soils that are not reused on site should be considered as waste and managed as such under national policies. In order to clarify these rules and provide stakeholders with a common operational framework, the French Ministry for Environment called upon BRGM and INERIS to draft a guidance for the reuse of excavated soils in off-site locations (i.e. within road construction, or development projects) and to develop the necessary tools for its implementation at local / regional scale. Following a review of European countries practice in this field, methodological tools have been developed with the support of working groups which included a wide range of stakeholders (professional unions, environmental protection association, planners, lawyers, etc.). The tools are now freely available from the French Portal for contaminated land management (http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Guide-de-reutilisation-hors-site.html). After a short presentation on the French Soil management framework, its aims and the general scheme, this paper will focus on the tools that have been developed in support to the implementation program. The first developed tool is Hydrotex. It is used for groundwater risk assessments. It enables to assess whether the reuse of excavated soils in a specific off-site location will affect or not groundwater resource quality. Using the Hydrotex spreadsheet, a specific groundwater concentration is calculated from the excavated soil concentration. This concentration is determined for each off-site receiver site and for each substance of concern at the groundwater target to be protected. To keep track of the excavated soils quality and their reuse, an information traceability system is implemented using the TERRASS database which is an interactive tool, available online. These traceability measures will allow for the monitoring of excavated soil volumes from a producer site to a receiver site. The receiver site can be a transit hub / cluster, a treatment center or directly a receiver site (for a development project or road construction). The database will also provide indicators.

Mots clés: excavated soil reuse; French methodology; risk assessment; guidelines values

Domaines: Ingénierie de l'environnement

Céline Blanc, Dominique Darmendrail, Laurent Rouvreau, Mathilde Scamps, Geoffrey Boissard. Excavated soil reuse tools developed as part of the French soil management framework. 6th Conference on Innovative Solutions for Revitalization of Degraded Areas ; 3rd CABERNET Conference on Managing Urban Land, Oct 2012, Ustron, Poland. 12 p. ⟨hal-00794146⟩