GeoForum 04

The forum, Geosynthetics in Engineering : Moving Towards New Application Practices, was held in Quebec City, Canada, on February 11-12, 2004, and gathered about 150 participants. Cont’d 2/16/04 The 2-day conference was about geosynthetics applications to road construction & rehabilitation and environmental applications – Barry Christopher, Dave Suits, George Koerner, Andre Rollin, Bob Denis, Eric Blond and others presented excellent papers. Abstracts to follow shortly. A short report from Terrafix’s Bruno Herlin follows: “Being in attendance for only one day of a two day event at the Forum Geosynthetics 2004 Conference in Quebec City organized by Sageos, my observations and comments as a delegate to this forum was that organizers at Sageos put together a list of speakers, papers, and information which would rival any industry related conference on geosynthetics. The quality of the presentations provided at this forum was very informative and top notch. It offered all those in attendance an added update on the industry and provided everyone with items to add to their own personal bag of tricks to use for upcoming projects requiring geosynthetic solutions. As per George Koerner’s comment during his presentation ‘Geosynthetics…they can do the job, they have shown that they work, we as engineers and designers would have to be negligent not to use them’. This statement got everyone’s blood flowing in the room.
The forum was presented in both official languages. A complete package of the forum can be purchased from Sageos, however a package doesn’t replace the added information which was supplied from a list of highly educated presenters put together for this forum. The added benefit of this forum in particular is the small venue atmosphere, an atmosphere which other geosynthetics conferences should follow. The small venue offered an atmosphere where all can communicate to exchange information, something which is lacking when conferences are held in large venues. Not to be missed, are future forums to be presented by Sageos later this year. From Quebec City signed, Bruno Herlin, P.Eng. Project Engineer, Terrafix Geosynthetics Inc.”