Virtual SMART Remediation 2021! – Recap & Thanks!

Virtual SMART Remediation 2021! – Recap & Thanks!

As with many other events and activities this past year, SMART Remediation was forced to pivot and go virtual for the first time ever. Since we much rather meet in person for these types of events, and since most of you said the same thing in our survey, we wanted to make this years’ virtual conference as close to the real thing as possible. Clearly, a repeat event like this one from January last year in Toronto was out of the question:

We also want to make it accessible to a wide audience and avoid the fatigue that can sometimes result from long virtual sessions. So we broke it up into four weekly sessions of only 2 hours each and lowered the price. Judging by the over 350 people that attended, and feedback like in the quote below, we think we managed to pull it off!

“I just wanted to say thank you for coming up with the idea of “SMART Remediation”. It not only introduced the industry to me but made me fall in love with my field all over again. I have never had a more clear vision about the field I pursued and what I want to do in the future. I appreciate the efforts that were put into bringing this event to life especially in a pandemic. I would recommend this event to all my friends and I’m looking forward to attending the next one.” – Amandeep Singh

Even our inimitable MC, Bruce Tunnicliffe, seemed to have had a good time hosting virtually for the first time:

Below we wish to thank those who attended, provide a brief recap, and highlight some of the interesting presentations that attendees enjoyed this year.

Once again, all of the talks were very interesting and well-received! Just to highlight a few, attendees watched talks including:

  • Your Credibility is on the Line: Examining your Role as an Expert Witness, by Marc McAree from Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP
  • A Treatment Plant in Your Building Basement? The Evolution of Groundwater Treatment for New Constructions, by our very own Nathan Lichti from Vertex Environmental
  • Remediation of the Marwell Tar Pit, Whitehorse, Yukon, by Ric Horobin from SLR Consulting and Paul Inglis from the Government of Yukon
  • STAR and STARx – Smoldering Remediation of PFAS-Contaminated Soils, by Laura Kinsman from Savron Solutions
  • Unlocking the Secrets of Fractured Bedrock Injection, by Bill Brab from AST Environmental
  • PFAS, Total Organic Precursors (TOPs) and Total Organic Fluorine (TOF): “What’s the difference and when to use one over the other?”, by Taras (Terry) Obal from Bureau Veritas Laboratories
  • Waterfront Toronto – Risk Management Measures for the New River Valley, by David Bertrand from Geosyntec Consultants International, Inc.
  • Plus many more…

The full agenda is still available on-line here: 2021 SMART Virtual Event – SMART Remediation and PDFs of the talks are also available on that page and can be access by clicking on the links beside each of the speakers’ names. For those who paid to attend this year, the recordings of all sessions are on-line and can be accessed here: Virtual SMART Remediation Seminar Recordings – SMART Remediation using the password previously sent to you. If you missed out on registering in advance for the live session you can still access the recordings of all 16 great talks for the original $40 price by contacting SMART Remediation at info@smartremediation.com.

Once of the key features we wanted to maintain while still going virtual was to replicate the feel of an in-person conference by having live networking sessions. A series of breakout rooms were set up that were hosted by our sponsors at the end of each session:

Many people stuck around and hopped in and out of those virtual breakout rooms to ask questions, talk shop, play a game, win door prizes, catch up or just hang out and listen in for a while. Two lucky people that stuck around after each session also won a complementary ticket to one of next years’ SMART Remediation events.

Thank you to all who attended and supported the 2021 virtual events! We took a chance going virtual this year, but thanks to the wonderful support from all the attendees, sponsors and speakers we were all able to enjoy another informative and educational seminar. We look forward to seeing you (hopefully in-person) in 2022!

Visit the SMART Remediation website for more information: www.smartremediation.com