Contaminants can cause significant, long-lasting damage to sensitive terrain.

Resource and industrial development increases the risk of environmental damage and presents a particular challenge in Canada where sites are exposed to both seasonal freezing and permafrost-affected terrain. Each contaminant group — LNAPLs, DNALPs, and metalloids — moves differently through seasonally or perennially frozen ground and thus requires its own protocol for contaminant cleanup.

Governments, First Nations, environmental agencies, and petroleum and mining companies are responsible for developing strategies that minimize environmental damage. At the same time, governments and regulatory bodies are charged with filling information gaps and developing plans to remediate contaminated sites.

The data required to address these problems has not been easily accessible until now.

The release of this book set and accompanying databases fills this gap. Contaminants in Freezing Soils and Permafrost: Fate, Transport, and Transformation gives civil and environmental engineers and geoscientists in universities, research institutions, corporations, provincial and municipal governments, and regulatory agencies access to the data and analytical tools required to assess the behaviour of LNALPs, DNALPs, and metalloid contaminants in seasonally frozen soils and permafrost in a variety of settings:

• Airports and fuel storage depots
• Petroleum and mining sites
• Military and municipal landfill sites
• Brownfield sites

Containing decades of data and studies, this book set and accompanying databases describe the impacts of climate change on the fate and transport of contaminants, the containment of contaminants in frozen ground, and remediation strategies for brownfields sites. It’s a must-have for all Canadian researchers working in this area. 

T.L. (Les) White, BEnvS (University of Waterloo), MSc, PhD (Carleton University), is an environmental geoscientist whose research spanned more than 40 years in Canada and abroad. He began work as a researcher at the National Research Council of Canada before becoming a visiting scientist at the CNRS in Caen, France; a university research professor and director of the Geotechnical Science Laboratories, Carleton University; a visiting scholar and lecturer at the University of Cambridge; and a permafrost consultant Industry and government departments and is currently with the Canadian Standards Association of Canada.

By Thomas L. White

The timely release of the twelve-volume book set and accompanying Hydrocarbon Contaminated Soils Database Library provides engineers and geoscientists working in universities, research institutes, corporations, government and regulatory bodies with the tools necessary to carry out an in-depth examination of the behaviour of hydrocarbon contaminants in freezing soils and permafrost-affected soils.

The Environmental Resource Library details the fundamental behaviour and modification of physical, chemical and hydrological properties of freezing soils and permafrost-affected soils (Cryosols) by a wide range of hydrocarbon contaminants. The resource library provides the user with effective emission reduction tools for combating against the release of Greenhouse gases from hydrocarbon contaminated sites and provides additional insights into

• the thermodynamic properties of freezing soils
• Behaviour of hydrocarbon contaminants at airports, oil and gas facilities, mining sites, military sites, landfills and impoundments in cold climates
• the nature of contaminant hydrology with case studies for assessment
• strategies for contaminated site management
• technologies and remediation procedures

For further information, please contact Dr. White by email white@permafrost.ca or by calling direct 613-746-2324.

By Thomas L. White

The timely release of the fourteen-volume book set provides engineers and geoscientists working in research institutes, corporations, governments and regulatory bodies with an in-depth examination of the interdependence between cold climate and infrastructure and the behaviour of freezing soils and permafrost-affected soils

The Engineering Resource Library provides the user with additional insights into intricate concepts such as

• Soil strain and soil creep
• Hydrological and micro-morphological properties
• Frost heave and frost bulb growth
• Thaw consolidation and pipeline relaxation
• Pressure in freezing soils
• Bending stresses in buried pipelines
• Uplift resistance of pipelines in permafrost

The Library may be equipped with a suite of program modules and databases.

For further information, please contact Dr. White by email white@permafrost.ca or by calling direct 613-746-2324.

Permafrost Environmental Consulting is pleased to announce the immediate release of its suite of eight Program Modules. These Program Modules will enable engineers and geoscientists to examine the interdependence between cold climate infrastructure (e.g., buried pipelines) and the behaviour of freezing soils and permafrost-affected soils, and to develop, test, calibrate, and verify numerical models of frost heave and thermodynamic processes.

Developed from the six databases produced from 12 years of full-scale physical modelling of pipelines in freezing ground and permafrost, the Program Modules allow the user to evaluate different aspects of frost heave attributed to differences in the properties of the soil, differences in the thermal transition between perennially frozen and seasonally frozen soil, and different hydrological conditions.

Program Modules

1. Soil Strain and Soil Creep
2. Frost Heave and Frost Bulb Modelling
3. Thaw Consolidation and Pipeline Relaxation
4. Pressure in Freezing Soils and Permafrost Affected Soils
5. Stress Development in Buried Cold Climate Infrastructure
6. Uplift Resistance of Infrastructure in Permafrost Affected Soils
7. Hydrological Properties of Freezing Soils and Permafrost Affected Soils
8. Micro structural Analysis of Frost Susceptible Soils and Permafrost Affected Soils

For further information, please contact Dr. White by email white@permafrost.ca or by calling direct 613-746-2324.