Blue Gate Antwerp Remediation Strategy

Antwerp, Belgium

Filter projects by:

Market

  • Cities

    Cities EMIA

  • Commercial & Residential

    Mixed Use

    Office

    Residential

    Retail

  • Education

    Colleges & Universities

    Schools

  • Energy

    Carbon capture, utilization and storage

    Geothermal

    Grid modernization

    Hydroelectricity

    Hydrogen

    Microgrids and energy storage

    Offshore wind

    Portfolio Decarbonization and Climate Resilience

    Solar

    Transportation decarbonization

  • Environment

  • Healthcare

    Clinical Hospital

    Life Sciences

    Senior Living

  • Industrial

    Agriculture, Food & Beverage

    Automotive & Heavy Equipment & Machinery

    Digital Infrastructure

    High Performance Logistics

    Manufacturing

    Mining & Metals

    Pharmaceutical/Specialty Chemicals

    Pulp & Paper

  • Justice

  • Leisure

    Arts and Culture

    Hotels and Resorts

    Themed Entertainment and Mixed-Use

  • National Governments

    Civil Works

    Disaster Resilience

    Infrastructure & Facilities

  • Oil, Gas & Chemicals

    Chemical/Petrochemical

    Downstream

    Midstream

    Upstream

  • Sports and Venues

    Collegiate

    Convention Centers

    Olympics & Mega-Events

    Stadiums & Arenas

  • Transportation

    Air Cargo

    Aviation

    Bridges & Tunnels

    Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

    Freight Rail

    Highways & Roads

    Mass Transit

    Ports & Marine

    Transportation decarbonization

  • Water

    Dams & Hydropower

    Flood and coastal resilience

    Industrial Water

    Tunnels, Conveyance, Collection & Distribution

    Wastewater Treatment & Reuse

    Water Treatment

    Watershed and Ecosystem Management

Service

  • AECOM Capital

  • Alternative Delivery Models

  • Architecture and Design

    Architecture

    Asset Advisory

    Climate Adaptation

    Community Engagement

    Interior Architecture

    Landscape Architecture

    Planning

    Urban Analytics

    Urban Design

    Urbanism + Planning

  • Asset Management

  • Cities Solutions

  • Construction Management

  • Converged Resilience

  • Cost Management

  • Digital Infrastructure Services

  • Economics

  • Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Solutions

  • Engineering

    Ground Engineering

  • Environmental Services

    Air Quality Consulting and Engineering

    Climate Adaptation

    EHS Management Consulting and Compliance

    Environmental Contracting

    Environmental/Social Impact Assessment and Permitting

    Management Information Systems (MIS)

    Remediation, Restoration and Redevelopment

  • Fabrication

  • Finance

  • Industrial and Commercial Operations and Maintenance

  • IT and Cybersecurity

  • Mobilitics

  • Multinational Investment and Development

  • Pedestrian Modelling (North America)

  • Planning and Consulting

    Geospatial Services

    Pedestrian Modelling

  • Process Development & Implementation

  • Program Management

  • Public-Private Partnerships

  • Risk Management & Resilience

    Critical Infrastructure Protection

  • Simulation Models

    Rail Simulations

  • Strategic consulting

    People + Place Advisory

  • Tunnels, Trenchless Technology and Underground Infrastructure

  • Vertical Transportation Services (North America)

  • Visualization and Virtual Reality

Location

  • Africa

  • Algeria

  • Antarctica

  • Australia

  • Azerbaijan

  • Bahrain

  • Bangladesh

  • Belgium

  • Bolivia

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina

  • Brazil

  • British West Indies

  • Canada

  • Caribbean-Puerto Rico

  • China

  • Colombia

  • Croatia

  • Czech Republic

  • Egypt

  • Eritrea

  • Finland

  • France

  • Germany

  • Greece

  • Greenland

  • Haiti

  • Hong Kong

  • India

  • Indonesia

  • Iraq

  • Ireland

  • Italy

  • Japan

  • Kenya

  • Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

  • Kuwait

  • Liberia

  • Lithuania

  • Malaysia

  • Maldives

  • Mali

  • Malta

  • Mauritania

  • Mexico

  • Monaco

  • Mongolia

  • Montenegro

  • Myanmar

  • Netherlands

  • New Zealand | Aotearoa

  • Norway

  • Oman

  • Panama

  • Papua New Guinea

  • Peru

  • Philippines

  • Poland

  • Portugal

  • Qatar

  • Romania

  • Singapore

  • Slovakia

  • South Africa

  • South Korea

  • Spain

  • Sri Lanka

  • Sweden

  • Switzerland

  • Taiwan

  • Turkey

  • Ukraine

  • United Arab Emirates

  • United Kingdom

  • United States

  • Vietnam

  • Worldwide

AECOM’s environmental experts developed the remediation strategy to clean up Blue Gate, a former petrochemical brownfield site in Antwerp. Located along the Scheldt River, Blue Gate was first developed in 1902. At its peak it was one of Europe’s main gateways for petrochemical products.

Today, around 305,000 cubic metres of soil is contaminated with total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), and 2,500 cubic metres with light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL). Some 1 million cubic metres contains elevated concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals.

AECOM is performing the work as part of the Blue O’pen consortium, the private partner in the public private partnership (PPP) delivering the project. DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC) is leading on the remediation and appointed us to redevelop the contaminated 100-hectare site.

In addition to the remedial strategy, our services include further mapping of contaminations and providing environmental follow-up of the remediation works.

Challenges

A big challenge in the remediation strategy was setting eco-friendly remediation goals which met regulatory requirements. Our environmental experts defined these based on risk, and selected them using the Best Available Technology Not Entailing Excessive Costs (BATNEEC) principle.

A main goal was to remove all mobile LNAPL, the formation of which is complex and dependent on many criteria. Blue Gate has several types of soil textures and oil, so using a generic target value would be inconclusive. Therefore, we developed an innovative protocol to rapidly screen the potential of LNAPL formation during remediation works.

Sustainability

Our remediation specialists used a number of strategies to minimise the project’s environmental footprint and enable the sustainable development of the site. These included:

On-site soil treatment

  • This cut the environmental impact related to transporting and remediating contaminated soil by 90 per cent, and costs by 40 per cent.

Waterway transport

  • We transport contaminated soil not eligible for on-site treatment by ship, minimising the impact on Antwerp’s already congested roads

Re-using soil

  • Our soil management strategy re-used 400,000 cubic metres of soil and gravel to help reshape the terrain — rather than sending it to landfill

Digital solutions

As part of the remediation strategy, AECOM implemented a number of digital innovations during the works. We used drones to calculate volumes of stockpiles and monitor the re-use of materials. Our experts also developed a GPS smartphone app to pinpoint their exact location. An extensive new database enabled us to monitor the flow of raw materials.