Combatting contaminated lands: Meet Felicia Mellors
Felicia is Technical Director from our Environment business line and is based in Adelaide, South Australia. She has led large-scale, multidisciplinary environmental projects and programs throughout her career that span technical subject matters. Notably, she has extensive experience in the assessment and remediation of contaminated land.
Since joining AECOM in 2017, Felicia has worked on numerous Defence projects. She provides ongoing leadership, support and project management on the Australian Defence Force’s Regional Contamination Investigation Program. Through this, she’s developed extensive site contamination knowledge of the Defence Estate in South Australia and within other regions. She’s used her knowledge of the program to design, implement and provide technical advice on multiple other land contamination and resource quality Defence programs and projects across Australia.
What have been the most rewarding projects you’ve worked on in your career?
I find projects with complex problems — that need diversely skilled teams to solve — most rewarding. Additionally, I derive great satisfaction from working on projects that foster genuine partnerships with clients. These projects force me to think outside the box, to find the right people that will find the best solutions. In these scenarios I need to leverage my skills and networks, and build trusting relationships. Some projects that come to mind are remediation projects where complex challenges like co-mingled contamination or hazardous wastes were presented. These projects required established partnerships with clients, specialist teams, and subcontractors to deliver safe solutions.
In your role leading our contaminated land services teams for our Defence clients, what key skills and strategies do you often use?
My experience leading projects within the Defence estate has equipped me with a deep and practical understanding of Defence policy, legislation and technical guidance. I leverage this knowledge to develop and implement strategies tailored to the unique needs of each project to tackle contaminated land and other environmental issues for the sector.
I often draw on strategic planning, regulatory navigation, stakeholder engagement and technical risk assessment to deliver for our Defence clients. I prioritise early and proactive collaboration to identify issues early, streamline approvals and maintain compliance. My approach ensures the delivery of practical and cost-effective solutions to support long-term estate sustainability.
How do you deliver exceptional value for our Defence clients?
I deliver exceptional value to our Defence clients by building and leading high-performing, multidisciplinary teams that combine deep local knowledge with specialised technical expertise. During my time at AECOM, I’ve cultivated strong relationships with our people across Australia in our Environment business, our broader multidisciplinary teams, and our global network of technical experts who have specialised and niche technical knowledge. I also maintain close working relationships with trusted subcontractors who bring specialist capabilities to the table.
These relationships are essential for building teams with the right local and technical knowledge, best suited to the unique challenges of each project, to deliver excellent results for clients. I’ve used this team approach to deliver complex remediation pilot trials and remediation projects for Defence. Ultimately, I focus on understanding our clients’ priorities and bringing our best people to align solutions to their operational, environmental and strategic goals.
How do you build and maintain strong relationships with clients when you’re working on complex projects like contaminated land remediation?
Relationships are only built and maintained on trust. By treating a project as a partnership with our clients, we jointly own the task of finding and delivering the right solutions. We continuously engage and communicate with transparency through project delivery so our clients can trust we’re doing what we say we will. We bring clients along the delivery path, sharing progress and wins, and if issues arise, we tell our clients immediately so there are no surprises. This is crucial for complex and sensitive projects.
What long-term environmental benefits result from successful contaminated site remediation? How do you measure and communicate these to stakeholders and the community?
When a site is successfully remediated it is no longer a potential (or actual) contamination risk to the environment and the people around it. When we remediate a site, land is unlocked for community/economic/industrial benefit, rather than being wastefully restricted. We plan for remediation by assessing a number of factors and determining which remediation approach is best. The approach is based not only on returning the land for use but also on meeting sustainability targets such as low energy use and low waste generation. This means we return the land to its most beneficial community impact. Stakeholder and community engagement is so important in remediation to make sure our approach best meets the expectations of those impacted by the land being decontaminated.
Felicia’s leadership has been instrumental in our 20+ years of delivering robust and consistent environmental services to the Australian Defence sector.