Halifax - Speakers

A. Robert (Bob) Funke has been a practicing professional engineer for over thirty-two years. He has been Town Engineer for the Town of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia since 1982. Bob has also acted as CAO for the Town of New Glasgow on two separate occasions during his career with the Town, most recently ending in December of 2007.

During his time as Town Engineer, Bob has implemented policies and procedures in line with recognized national Best Practices for the Engineering and Public Works Department for the Town of New Glasgow. He has attended two FCM sponsored study tours to Germany and to the Netherlands, and has taken several courses in energy management and alternate energy. Bob has represented Atlantic Canada as a director with the American Water Works Association.

Bob has directed the design of a water treatment facility and sewage treatment upgrades. He has designed water, sewer, and storm sewer systems, as well as on site storage systems, wetlands projects, etc. As Town Engineer, Bob has been responsible for all aspects of Engineering and water, as well as directing associated environmental design for an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan, a Partners for Climate Protection program, and a local Communities in Bloom program.

Bob has also been a Peer Review consultant for the FCM Municipal Green Funds since 2002. In addition, Bob has been one of the champions of the Partners for Climate Protection Program since 1998, and is primarily responsible for the Town of New Glasgow attaining the third level of the PCP Program this past year.

In March of 2010 Bob retired after 28 years with the Town of New Glasgow and formed his own small consulting firm specializing in municipal project management and strategic long term planning

Mr. Harnum is a Project Manager /Senior Environmental Engineering Technologist for the Dartmouth, NS office of AMEC Earth and Environmental. Mr. Harnum has over 11 years experience in the fields of waste reduction, environmental site assessments (ESAs), risk assessment, remediation and hazardous material surveys.

He provides project management, co-ordination and supervision of environmental site assessments (ESAs), emergency petroleum spill responses, offshore spill logistics, Atlantic PIRI Site Specific Risk Assessments, installation of free-product recovery and vapour extraction systems, compliance audits, hazardous material surveys, asbestos abatement monitoring and indoor air quality assessments. Mr. Harnum has conducted numerous phased environmental site assessments in accordance with CSA and CMHC standards for commercial and industrial sites throughout the Atlantic Provinces and has remediated numerous brownfield sites within the Halifax Regional Municipality.

Dan Hemsworth is a Hydrogeologist and Contaminated Sites Specialist and has been with the Department of Environment and involved with contaminated sites for 20+ years. An active member as the Departments representative on the Atlantic PIRI Committee and Chair of the Regulators Sub-Committee, working to harmonize approaches and processes to address issues of mutual concern on remediation of Brownfield sites in the Atlantic Provinces. Working together with the other members of the Atlantic PIRI Committee, issues related to Atlantic Risk Based Corrective Action, Brownfields redevelopment and regulations dealing with contamination in Nova Scotia and the Atlantic Provinces have been a priority for Dan and the Department.

Ms. Murphy has a Bachelor of Science degree in Earth Science from Memorial University and a Masters of Science degree in Earth Science with a focus on contaminant hydrogeology from the University of Waterloo. Prior to joining Defence Construction Canada in 2004 as an Environmental Coordinator, Ms. Murphy worked as an environmental consultant in Canada and the United States for 10 years. Her primary responsibility at DCC is Environmental Program Manager for the Goose Bay Remediation Project. She is responsible for providing environmental expertise and assistance in managing and supporting contracts on behalf of DND for the Goose Bay Remediation Project.

Dawne has been a consultant in the environmental engineering field for 8 years. In her current capacity with CBCL Limited, Dawne acts as project manager for a range of environmental services including phased environmental site assessments, human health and ecological risk assessments, remediation and Environmental Impact Assessments. As such, she works with multi-disciplinary project management teams and stakeholders, including Land Use Planners. Her approach to the assessment of remedial and risk management options for any contaminated site is heavily dependent on end use planning and site design.

Topic: The Role of End Use Planning and Public Consultation in the Redevelopment of Brownfields
The benefits of integrating end use planning and public consultation in the development and analysis of remedial and risk management options for petroleum contaminated sites and other brownfields will be discussed. Methodologies for implementing a synergistic planning process, potential inputs and outputs of the planning and design process and potential pitfalls will be examined.

Gordon has over 20 years of consulting experience and has completed over 100 planning and design projects for a variety of clients including municipal, provincial and federal governments, schools, universities and other institutions, and a range of developers and other private clients throughout Canada and Botswana, Africa. He is a full member of the Canadian Institute of Planners and Canadian Society of Landscape Architects.

His international experience has taught him to be highly sensitive to the context in which he is working and to be able to design and manage projects effectively in a variety of situations. Gordon has skills and experience in working at a wide range of scales from regional plans covering areas of tens of thousand of square kilometres to detailed site design and construction monitoring on residential projects.

Gordon is particularly interested in multi-disciplinary work and how the successful interaction of different professions can add value to projects by creating solutions and opportunities on a variety of levels.

Ms. Whalen is a graduate of Memorial University's Masters of Applied Science in Environmental Engineering program and has worked for the Department of National Defence for that past 7 years. Prior to her current role as Project Officer for the Goose Bay Remediation Project, she held the position of Wing Environmental Officer at 5 Wing Goose Bay.

As project officer, Lori is the liaison between the project, DCC and Wing operations.

Rob Willis is an environmental toxicologist and risk assessor with Intrinsik Environmental Sciences Inc. (formerly Cantox Environmental Inc.). He holds a Masters of Environmental Studies degree from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, with an emphasis on environmental toxicology, from the University of Guelph. He is also a Canadian Certified Environmental Practitioner in the areas of human and environmental health and safety, and air quality protection, since 2004. He has conducted numerous human health and ecological risk assessments of contaminated sites and industrial facilities within the Atlantic region and elsewhere. This has included assessments of U.S. military bases, rifle ranges, power plants, mines, smelters and other metallurgical facilities, refineries, pulp and paper facilities, various residential and commercial contaminated sites, and a number of chemical-impacted freshwater, estuarine and marine water bodies. He has also been involved in producing supporting scientific documentation for soil, water and air quality criteria to various regulatory agencies (e.g., Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Alberta Environment, Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, Environment Canada).