
Michael Dunbavan
Senior Principal
Phone: +61 2 9406 1206
Email: Michael.Dunbavan@coffey.com
The sites I’ve audited range in size from a small urban residential block to a former cattle holding area covering several tens of hectares. The nature of contamination affecting sites has ranged from rubble from demolition of a residential house, to a former manufactured gas plant site. Other sites have included a school site on an uncontrolled industrial landfill and a public open air performance area in one of the oldest European settlements in Australia.
I gained my auditor accreditation in 2008, which was based on almost 20 years’ professional practice in assessment, remediation and management of contaminated land. Most of my experience is in heavy industry, especially iron and steel making, mining industrial areas and downstream petroleum facilities at project locations across Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and the United States.
I enjoy using my experience to provide the project owner with a more assured outcome. The challenge I enjoy is gaining an understanding of the historical activities on a site so that subsurface contamination can be anticipated. This allows timely and cost-effective solutions to be implemented, as well as to reduce the impact of unexpected finds on the project program.
Whilst there are many highlights, I’m particularly proud of an audit I undertook for a council owned gasworks. The site was demolished and sold for redevelopment, and medium density housing was built and occupied. Development on the adjacent property uncovered significant coal tar contamination which extended beneath the residential area. Council, as the party responsible for contamination, bought back the site and proceeded with remediation guided by their environmental consultant. I was appointed as site auditor near the end of the remediation works. We helped the council to identify an optimal solution for environmental controls which were affordable and could be implemented as part of the refurbishment of the housing. To enhance this outcome, Council was able to offer rental of housing to low mobility community members because the site was level and close to the centre of town.