Treatment and Monitoring of Landfill Gas – Speakers’ Biographies
10.00-10.10 – Welcome Address
Dr. Paul Bolger, ESAI Chairperson
E-mail: p.bolger@ucc.ie
Dr. Paul Bolger has a PhD in Chemistry from The Queen’s University
of Belfast and an MBA from The Open University. He worked as a
Research Fellow for 3 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency developing clean electrochemical-based processes for the
metal plating industry. He held the position of wastewater R&D
manager at Bord na Mόna Environmental Ltd from 2002 to 2006. He
is currently manager of Environmental Research Institute at
University College Cork.
Dr Bolger has been on the Environmental Sciences Association of
Ireland (ESAI) Council since 2007, served as Treasurer from 20082009 and is Chairperson of the ESAI since 2011. He was Conference Convenor of the Irish
Environmental Researcher’s Colloquium held in UCC in 2011.
10.10 – 10.25 – Historical perspective of Kinsale Road Landfill Site
Mr Michael O’Brien, Senior Engineer, Cork City Council
E-mail: michael_obrien@corkcity.ie
Michael is a Civil Engineering graduate from UCC (BE and ME). He has
worked with Cork County Council at numerous grades and at many
departments. Since joining Cork City Council as a Senior Engineer in
1990 Michael has been involved in waste management, renewable
energy projects and the opening of the science & education centre at
Lifetime Lab.
Most recently he has headed up the restoration and remediation of the
now closed Kinsale Road Landfill Site with the ultimate aim of delivering
an amenity area for the city and beyond.
10.25 – 10.40 – Next phase of restoration at Kinsale Road Landfill Site
Mr Brían O’Flynn, Cork City Council
E-mail: brian_oflynn@corkcity.ie
Brían O’Flynn is an Executive Engineer with Cork City Council. Since
graduating from University College Cork in 2001 he has worked for
both Cork County and City Councils. Having worked initially in
Landfill management with the County Council his career has taken
him to the housing department and waste operations departments
of Cork City Council. Since joining the Kinsale road Landfill
remediation team in 2011 Brían has been overseeing the final
phase of capping works at the landfill as well as working closely
with City Council staff, master planning consultants and other
interested parties on developing the Tramore valley park into a
public amenity
10.40 – 10.55 – Gas Migration - Protecting Buildings located on and adjacent to Landfills
Ms Cora Plant, RPS Group
E-mail: cora.plant@rpsgroup.com
Cora is an associate with RPS. She has extensive experience in the areas of
project management, procurement and contract management. Specialising
in the areas of landfill, waste licensing, contaminated lands assessment as
well as hydrology; Cora is currently Project Manager for Ballyogan Landfill
Stage 2 Capping project and the Waterford Wetlands Remediation Project.
10.55 – 11.05 – Questions & Answers
11.05 – 11.20 – Tea/Coffee
11.20 – 11.35 - Novel approach for treatment of low calorific landfill gas
Mr Kevin Ryan, Cork City Council
E-mail: kevin_ryan@corkcity.ie
Kevin is a graduate of UCC’s Department of Geology and
University of Ulster’s School of Environmental Sciences. He
has been working for some time with Cork City Council
where he works in the area of waste management and
recycling. He is currently part of the team restoring and
rehabilitating the old city landfill site at Kinsale Road. As part
of his work he is also undertaking part-time postgraduate
research in to treatment of landfill leachate using natural
systems under the supervision of Dr. A.R. Allen, Department
of Geology, UCC.
11.35 – 11.50 - Bio-oxidation of methane in landfill gas
Dr Brian Sheridan, Odour Monitoring Ireland
E-mail: info@odourireland.com
Dr. Brian Sheridan is an air quality and process engineer with Odour
Monitoring Ireland. His keen interest areas include: Odour science,
Dispersion Modelling, Remediation of waste gases using biological
techniques to include biotrickling and biofilters, engineering
development and design of such system. He completed a PhD Eng
in this area in UCD in 2002 and worked with Prof Deshusses “a
pioneer of research in this topic” in the University of California in
2004. He was also involved in the development of a novel survey
technique for landfill gas surface emissions with his colleague Dr.
John Casey which subsequent guidance provided by the EPA was
based upon.
11.50 – 12.05 - Recent advances in web-based sensor technology for remote monitoring of landfill
gas
Dr Fiachra Collins, Adaptive Sensors Group, DCU
E-mail: fiachra.collins@dcu.ie
Fiachra Collins received his B.E. (Mechanical Engineering, 2007) from
University College Dublin and his Ph.D. (Impact characterisation of
polymers, 2011) from Dublin City University. He has worked for a short
time in electromechanical industry (2005 – 2006). He is currently a
postdoctoral researcher in the Adaptive Sensors research group in DCU,
specifically coordinating an EPA STRIVE research project on developing
autonomous gas monitoring platforms (2011 – 2013). This project
involves the development of automated systems that remotely operate
to sense landfill gas concentrations and extraction pressures; in
cooperation with the OEE, these systems have operated on over 8 landfill sites nationwide with
multiple deployment durations of up to 13 months. Fiachra has presented this work at numerous
Irish and international conferences/seminars and has over 10 peer-reviewed papers in international
journals.
The 23rd Irish Environmental Researchers' Colloquium (ENVIRON
2013) will be co-hosted by The Environmental Sciences Association
of Ireland (ESAI) and The Ryan Institute in National University of
Ireland Galway (NUIG) on Jan 30th - Feb 1st 2013. This years’
theme will be “From Ecosystem Functioning to Human Health”.
The ENVIRON colloquium is the largest annual gathering of environmental
researchers in Ireland with over 290 researchers attending the event. The event
continues to provide a wonderful platform for PhD students and postdoctoral
researchers to present their research to a wide audience. Since its establishment in
1990 one of the main strengths of the colloquium has been that it attracts delegates
from a wide variety of disciplines, and in a time when science, engineering and
environmental science is becoming increasingly fragmented and specialised, the
colloquium provides a unique opportunity for specialist researchers to learn what is
happening outside their own research area.
www.environ2013.org