CSIRO Environment, Lucas Heights
NSW Focus on New Ventures - CSIRO Lucas Heights Team
The team at CSIRO Environment, Lucas Heights celebrated 42 years of research in contaminant chemistry and effects risk assessment with a dinner bringing together current and former research colleagues before closing the site office on 30 March 2024. The dinner provided a time to reflect and share laughter and fond memories of all that the collective team has achieved and to look forward to new life pathways. Below is a summary of where people are and what they are working on currently.
Merrin Adams is currently working with the Environment Protection Science Branch (EPS) within the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Merrin is working with Janina Beyer (EPS) to implement their science strategy and will be supporting future activities on pesticides, biodiversity, chemical-safe circular economies, and NSW regulation and policy. While EPS is based at Lidcombe and regional NSW, Merrin now calls Newcastle home. Merrin has also continued with some of her projects initiated at CSIRO. Look out for her publication on the toxicity of barium to groundwater cyclopoids, and a follow up publication describing a groundwater quality guideline value for barium, with Kitty McKnight (MU), David Spadaro, Monique Binet, Stu Simpson, Grant Hose (MU) and Steve Fenton (Chevron). Merrin is also revising the ammonia water quality guideline for freshwaters following public consultation by Commonwealth DCCEEW and continues to enjoy working with students. She is currently assisting Alex Bastick (CSU) to investigate the effect of radiation on marine microalgae with Tom Cresswell (ANSTO), Francesca Gissi (ANSTO), Darren Koppel (AIMS) and Jess Tout-Lyon (CSU). Merrin can be contacted at merrin.adams@environment.nsw.gov.au. Â
Brad Angel and Josh King have relocated to purpose-built NATA-accredited laboratories at the CSIRO Environment Black Mountain site at Canberra. They join the Ecosurveillance Systems team led by David Beale which is part of the Healthy Communities Group led by Stuart Simpson. Their work utilises much of the analytical capability previously located at the Lucas Heights laboratories, with a research focus on improvements to environmental management processes at mining and industry sites to better protect ecosystems. They specialise in the measurement of inorganic contaminants (e.g. mercury) at ultratrace concentrations in complex matrices, including factors affecting speciation to evaluate bioavailability. The future science strategy of the team involves growth in critical minerals exploration and processing, waste recycling/ beneficiation, circular economy / decommissioning domains. Being part of a larger CSIRO site and the close proximity to the ANU and University of Canberra means it is “onwards and upwards” following the relocation from Lucas Heights. Â
Graeme Batley is now an Honorary Fellow with CSIRO Environment, interacting with Brad Angel, Lisa Golding, Stuart Simpson and Monique Binet. With the loss of an office at Lucas Heights (except for a hot desk at CSIRO Mineral Resources there), he is largely working from home. Guideline activities remain a priority, with updating of revised guidelines and an involvement in the transition from Burrlioz to ssdtools. Project activities include work for Sydney Water on sewer overflows and plans for river releases of RO-treated water, for NiPERA on chromium risk assessment studies (with Jenny), and for Esso on Bass Strait oil pipeline decommissioning. With Monique Binet, he is looking at guidelines for antimicrobial resistance. He is still churning out journal publications and is busy on these activities most days.  He was awarded the Founders Award 2024 which is SETAC’s most prestigious award for his outstanding contributions to science over the more than 40 years that he was with CSIRO at Lucas Heights. Graeme has been instrumental in raising the profile of SETAC and its outreach in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. He was the Foundation President of SETAC Asia-Pacific from 1997–2003, served on the SETAC Asia Pacific Board until 2011, and has served on many SETAC committees including on the IEAM editorial board, the Global Awards Committee and conference organizing committees. In recognition of his tireless work for SETAC over many decades, in 2016 he was awarded the SETAC Asia-Pacific Lifetime Achievement Award and received the SETAC Presidential Citation for Exemplary Service. All these activities demonstrate his strong commitment to volunteerism and professional service, which he has instilled in all his staff and students. Please read here for the tribute written by Jenny Stauber.
Monique Binet has joined the Minimising Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Mission, as Senior Project Manager. Co-developed by CSIRO and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; and the Department of Health and Aged Care, this One Health initiative aims to halt the rising death rate and economic burden of antimicrobial resistance by 2030. In addition to managing projects across human, animal and environment sectors, Monique’s building projects that prevent the spread and emergence of AMR in the aquatic environment due to wastewater impacts, connecting CSIRO’s ecotoxicology, wastewater and water quality experts (including but not limited to Anu Kumar, Stu Simpson, Jenny Stauber, Graeme Batley, Mike Williams, Pascal Craw, Warish Ahmed, Leah Clarke and Laura Baseggio) with human and/or animal health researchers and Industry (e.g., through SAAFE CRC). Monique attended the Environmental Dimensions of AMR (EDAR7) conference in Montreal in May, where she connected with researchers, regulators and industry representatives who have been driving the environmental AMR agenda internationally for the last decade, to help inform Mission activities and collaborations in the environment space. Current environment-relevant projects include: integrated water quality guidelines that consider AMR and environmental impact; sensing, detecting and removing antimicrobials from wastewaters; modelling AMR risks from hospital and municipal wastewater; contribution of adult hygiene products to AMR from an environmental perspective; developing a decision framework to assess wastewater treatments for removal of antibiotic residues and AMR pathogens. For any further information, feel free to connect with Monique at monique.binet@csiro.au.
Lisa Golding (lisa.golding@csiro.au) has relocated to the CSIRO Environment Brisbane site in the Ecosciences Precinct at Dutton Park. She is part of the Ecosurveillance Systems team led by David Beale which is part of the Healthy Communities Group led by Stuart Simpson. Our research focus is developing systems to detect and quantify risks of adverse effects of contaminants and pathogens to communities and ecosystems. Lisa has been finalising site-specific guidelines for protecting Norfolk Island’s coral reefs from nutrient impacts related to surface water and submarine groundwater discharges. She has been consulting with stakeholder groups for developing a causal network risk assessment for national hydrogen production in three renewable energy zones. Lisa has also been providing expert scientific advice as part of a panel on an ambitious project by a multi-disciplinary team of economists, ecotoxicologists and risk assessors (eftec, UKCEH and WCA). The team is conducting research into measuring and valuing the environmental impacts of chemical pollution in the UK. While the framework is designed for use by Defra, it has implications for the management of chemicals internationally.
Stuart Simpson relocated to Brisbane (CSIRO at Ecosciences Precinct, Dutton Park). After 6 months, his family are now enjoying the new city. Concurrent with the Sydney site exit was a restructure of the Industry Environments (IE) program (within CSIRO Environment), and that led to Stuart being appointed the leader of the new Healthy Communities Group within IE. This group, of almost 60, includes three teams: (i) EcoSurveillance Systems {develops systems to detect and quantify risks of adverse effects of contaminants and pathogens to communities and ecosystems}, (ii) Green Resource Recovery {develops pathways to recover metal resources and reduce environment footprint from resource extraction and consumption} and (iii) Waste Beneficiation & Storage {develops environmentally safe approaches for storage and repurposing of waste streams to minimise pollution and increase the beneficial reuse and circularity of resources}. Consequently, there is plenty of great science to help develop and new challenges for Stu in leading science for impact in areas he has minimal domain expertise. Stu has a strong personal interest in extending CSIRO biosurveillance capabilities and developing applications and positive management outcomes for a broader range of wastes (pathogens in the environment). His interest in the chemical-bioavailability-exposure-adverse effects area remains strong, and increasing for ResourceQWasteNResource.
David Spadaro (David.spadaro@csiro.au) is project manager and science communicator for the CSIRO microbiomes research group. This group uses multi-omic techniques to understand the structure and function of microbial communities and aims to develop targeted interventions to benefit our food, health or environment. A key area of this research is using microbes to degrade PFAS and plastics in the environment (within Stuart Simpson’s group). David is also the research data co-ordinator for the agriculture and food research unit within CSIRO. He assists this group find digital solutions to enhance science outcomes. He is currently the project manager of the Data School, a 13-week intensive digital course for researchers that teaches coding/programming skills as well as how to make the most of digital infrastructure.
Jenny Stauber has continued as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Genetics and Environment at La Trobe University, where she is co-supervising Sarah Green and involved in research projects to implement bioavailability-based guidelines for metals with Aleicia Holland, Jenni Gadd, Rick van Dam and Graham Merrington’s team at WCA, UK. She is also on a range of advisory committees for government and industry covering reef water quality, unconventional gas, mining, environmental health, risk assessment, contaminant guidelines, recreational water quality and hazardous industrial chemicals. She is continuing as a consultant on various research projects for the international Metals Environment Research Associations (MERA) and is assisting Monique Binet and CRC SAAFE to develop a new framework for antimicrobial resistance guidelines for the environment. Her new e mail is: jenny.stauber@outlook.com.
Since relocating to Hobart, Sarah Stephenson (sarah.stephenson@csiro.au) has become a Team Leader of the Coastal Vegetation and Food Webs Team as part of the Coastal and Oceanic Systems Program in CSIRO. Sarah recently started a HDR PhD program with Dr Ryan Turner at UQ and Dr Sharon Hook CSIRO as part of the Reef Catchments partnership at UQ. The focus of the PhD thesis is investigating integrating eDNA monitoring into the Reef catchments monitoring reporting. The main question of the thesis is: Can eDNA provide ecologically relevant data for indicator metrics of water quality in the GBR catchment context?