Geomechanics.io

A £40M plan to regenerate Northfleet Harbourside with a new Ebbsfleet United FC stadium and thousands of riverside homes is facing strong objections over lead contamination and freight disruption on the Thames. Objectors warn that disturbing historic industrial fill could mobilise legacy lead in soils and sediments, while new residential blocks and matchday traffic could constrain wharf access and rail-connected aggregates and cement terminals. Planners will need robust ground investigation, remediation strategies and safeguarded freight corridors to avoid compromising both public health and critical construction materials supply.

Deep-sea mining tests in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone at 4,280 metres depth, commissioned by Nauru Ocean Resources (a The Metals Company subsidiary), cut macrofaunal density by 37% and species richness by 32% along machine tracks over two years, based on disturbance of 3,000 tonnes of polymetallic nodules. European researchers from the Natural History Museum, University of Gothenburg and the National Oceanography Centre collected 4,350 sediment macrofaunal animals and identified 788 species, mainly polychaete worms, crustaceans and molluscs. The trial used machines only about half the size of planned commercial systems, raising concern that full-scale operations could cause larger, possibly irreversible, benthic impacts.

More than 15,000 tonnes of crushed concrete from the demolished turbine alternator plinths at Sizewell A has been certified to WRAP quality protocol and reused as sub-base for foundation platforms in the Sizewell C main construction area, just a few hundred metres away. Nuclear Restoration Services and Sizewell C report the material transfers are complete, avoiding landfill and an estimated 28 tonnes of CO₂ while cutting heavy truck movements through East Suffolk. The reuse scheme was initiated by the Environment Agency and East Suffolk Council as part of a wider push for circular decommissioning practice on nuclear sites.