An expensive legacy

LDM is a manufacturer of high-grade brass products for, among others, the automotive and sanitary industry. The company is a niche player in the national and international market. It has 166 employees and since 2004 – after several changes of ownership – it has been part of the Finnish group Outokumpu, a global player in the market for stainless steel semimanufactured products.
“Our company is one of the descendants of the former and renowned Lips company of magnate, Max Lips,” explains managing director Roel Priest. “In the post-war days Lips had up to 3,000 employees working continuously. This amounted to such large numbers of arriving and departing workmen, that the police had to direct the traffic to and from the industrial complex. In his unbridled pursuit of industrial expansion, Mr. Lips spared no expense; nor did he spare the environment. Mineral oils, chlorous cleansing agents, copper and zinc all ended up in the soil. This has ultimately resulted in an expensive legacy, which LDM must largely bear the costs of itself.”

LDM takes its responsibility

The contaminated substances are located below the 6-hectare large industrial complex at the industrial site ‘Groenewoud I’. According to the current environmental standards, these substances are a threat to the groundwater quality. So our motto is ‘clean up the mess’. The contamination must be removed, or kept in an immobile/stable state. Any new contamination is strictly prohibited. To this end, the company pursues a pro-active QHSE policy (quality, health, safety and environment), and wants to express this to the outside world.

Clean-up in strategic portions

“The contamination in question was largely caused in the period 1950-1985, when the business sector had yet to be woken its environmental responsibilities. This is also true for the Drunen location,” says QHSE manager Hans van Dugteren. “After an intensive soil survey in 1997, we agreed with the competent authority – the province of North Brabant – that, within 10 years, we would start with the location’s clean-up. We also agreed on a total clean-up period of 30 years.”
In 2005 LDM ordered a phased soil clean-up plan to be drawn up. Changing insights and regulations on soil clean-up meant that the contamination situation urgently needed to be reviewed. The results laid the foundation for the phased clean-up plan. In the summer of 2007 the decree was issued.
Van Dugteren says, “To limit disruptions to the business operations, the clean-up needs to be divided into strategic portions. The most serious contaminations will be dealt with first, before 2012. The operation’s final date will be 2036. Costs: € 3.9 million, a quarter of which has been subsidised per phase.”
The clean-up operation is to commence mid-2008, with the excavation and clean-up of the first of a total of eleven identified, contaminated areas.