The 2001 meeting of the Group was held over three days (12 to 14 September) and hosted by Imperial College in Central London. The local organiser was Chris Collins. The meeting was well attended with approximately 50 participants. There was the usual wide-ranging mix of presentations covering inter alii: the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a reassessment of the Windscale Fire, a variety of European estuaries, and the phytoextraction of Cs-137 contaminated soil. There were 34 presentations in total (23 oral and 11 posters). By far the most unusual for a COGER meeting was that given by Sir Bernard Ingham (former press secretary to Margaret Thatcher) and now a campaigner on behalf of the Supporters of Nuclear Energy. His talk entitled Hastening the Dawn of Reality led to a prolonged discussion. While Sir Bernard asked for the opportunity to address the Group, his talk was so stimulating that the Steering Committee is considering inviting similar interested non-professionals to future meetings.

The Annual COGER Lecture was given this year by David Coulston, who was until recently responsible for environmental protection at the BNFL Sellafield site. The title of his lecture was: Sellafields Environmental Footprint: A Temporal Perspective. Not only did we hear an insiders view of the history of the Sellafield discharges, but also some thoughts on the current and future situation. In what was a lucid, humorous and insightful account, it was made clear that both the industry and the regulators would need to show greater transparency if the concerns of the public were to be fully addressed.

There is one change to the membership of the Steering Committee this year. Paul Hooker has left the British Geological Survey (BGS) to join a consultancy company. His place on the Committee will be taken by David Jones, who is another member from BGS.