Objectives: Environmental Management of Construction Project is as much an educational project as a management project. The environmental manager must understand that the construction people’s primary focus is on getting the job built not on protecting the environment. The environmental managers role is to work as seamlessly as possible with the construction people without distracting them too much from their primary goal. This can sometimes be a challenge because contractors are often used to simply letting a contract and expecting that their role is complete once the contract has been executed. Construction Environmental Management often requires considerable maintenance and reconfiguration of the environmental controls as the project develops.
Planning and Timing: As with any kind of education the teacher should never expect the students to learn everything the first day and the teacher should use several techniques to instruct the students, not just shout out some instructions and expect the students to follow. The most successful method is when the environmental manager is engaged at the earliest stages of the project. That way an environmental management plan can be prepared that makes use of the knowledge of all the construction people, as well as the environmental manager. Sometimes contractors think they can save money by employing an environmental manager a few weeks after the project has started. This usually leads to delays and sometimes problems with the EPA or Council. The best system is heavy involvement at the start, reduced to minimal involvement as the project gets completed. On the Homebush Showground Site at Sydney Olympic Park I visited the site 3 times a week in the first 2 months, twice a week for the four months after that, and once a week for the final 8 months.
Measuring Success: In some cases the success of the project can be measured, as it was on the Cross City Tunnel project, where the same people that were in a panic when I first arrived on the project, were asking me a year later why I was still hanging around, since they obviously knew everything they needed to know about construction environmental management.
Christmas Island Immigration Reception and Processing Centre
Rouse Hill Infrastructure Project – Eric Claus was the Environmental Manager for the John Holland / Bilfinger Berger Joint Venture that built the water infrastructure for the Rouse Hill area with a four person staff. The infrastructure included the Stormwater Drainage, detention basins, Drinking water, recycled water and Sewer mains and a Sewage Treatment Plant with a constructed wetlands receiving the effluent from the treatment plant. The environmental management included Preparation of Erosion Control Plans for all sites, daily monitoring of all sites, weekly water sampling in 15 locations, 12 dust gauges, 4 High Volume Air Samplers, Noise monitoring, Noise Impact Statements at all projects, traffic monitoring and liaison with EPA, Sydney Water, Blacktown Council and Baulkham Hills Council.
Homebush Olympic Site
City West Redevelopment