Key Dates

Keynote speakers

• Dr Grant Northcott: Plant and Food Research. Grant is an environmental and analytical chemist with over 19 years’ experience. He has participated in research programmes assessing organic contaminants in sewage sludge applied to land in New Zealand and the UK and has co-authored a report on EU revisions to the recommended limits for organic contaminants in sewage applied to land (DETR, UK).
• Graham Sevicke-Jones is the Environmental Science Manager for Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, with over 22 years experience as a scientist in local government. Since graduating from Canterbury University Graham worked as an industrial chemist before taking up a science position in South Canterbury Catchment Board in water quality and ecology, an interest he continues with today. Graham has been involved in a number of water quality programmes furthering research and monitoring in NZ at a local and central government level. Graham is convenor of the Surface Water Integrated Management Group (SWIM), a special interest group within local government.
• Dr. Ajit K Sarmah: Ajit is a senior lecturer in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland. He is a multi-disciplinary scientist and an environmental engineer with a background in soil physics, contaminant hydrology and environmental organic chemistry with over 20 years experience in diverse areas of environmental pollution. He has pioneered the NZ research effort on endocrine disrupting compounds and the fate of veterinary antibiotics in the environment and will provide perspective on emerging contaminants in the dairy environment.

For more information on the conference see here.

The New Zealand Land Treatment Collective Annual Conference 2010, Dunedin -
“Managing wastes in rural and agricultural landscapes”

The NZ Land Treatment Collective's annual conference at the Otago Museum in Dunedin in March was interesting and informative, and a field tour on the Friday covered a range of waste initiatives from DoC remote toilet challenges and BioFiltro's worm supported wastewater treatment facility to farm dairy effluent management at Telford and Korteweg Farms.

Photos from the 2010 conference

	Photos (Clockwise from below): 1. Rob Potts (SWANS-SIG Chair) appropriately attired for the conference dinner at Larnach Castle; 2. The conference dinner at Larnach Castle; 3. The Biofiltro system at the Kaka PointSewage Treatment Plant; and 4. Lexie and Ian Gunn with Maureen Geary of NSW at the conference dinner.