As the rest of the world turns it attention to Hollywood and the Oscars, we’ve been focused on the only marginally less high-profile What House Awards. One of our clients, Q Developments, picked up two awards, one of which was for their development of a former filling station site in Teddington. We’re very proud to be able to say that we played our part in this project for Q Developments, having undertaken the decommissioning and removing the former petroleum installation and the treatment of hydrocarbon and asbestos-related soil contamination prior to the site’s residential redevelopment. Our congratulations to Q Developments on their award.
……is our mini dynamic sampling rig! In fact, its photographed here having its oil checked during a day’s work at a site on the south coast.
The geotechnical survey, which comprised standard penetrations tests (SPTs), dynamic probing, CBR tests and plate bearing tests, was designed to allow the design of foundations for a leading supermarket chain’s new store.
The site had a history of industrial development so, not surprisingly, it was littered with large, buried concrete obstructions from previous structures (foundations, beams and piles). We will soon be returning to complete pile probing at each of the new pile locations to enable the augers of the piling machines to keep turning thus avoiding expensive standing time.
Hopefully it will have stopped raining by then…..and no, sadly, we didn’t find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
At the heart of every quality or safety system (e.g. ISO 9001) is a commitment to continual improvement and, to be perfectly honest, we have always thought this is a bit of a nonsense. Putting aside any argument over ‘perfect’ being the enemy of ‘good enough’, any commitment to continual improvement implies that the service we offer today is deficient in some way and requires rectification. We think it would be far better to base a quality system on a commitment to periodic, critical review with improvement only when there is definite, tangible benefit. And it was the result of just such a review that prompted us to make an important ‘behind the scenes’ change in our laboratory.
Our laboratory instruments require a pure hydrogen supply in order to detect contaminants in concentrations as low as parts per billion. For the last 15 years, we have used hydrogen supplied in pressurised cylinders. But the cylinders represent a very significant risk in the event of a fire. In fact our local fire bridgade consider the risk of the cylinders exploding to be so high that, in the event of a fire, they would refuse to do anything other than evacuate the area and wait for the fire to run its course.
Our review highlighted this as the single, biggest risk facing our comapny. So, after researching alternative options, we have now switched our laboratory to using hydrogen which we generate on demand. This means we no longer store any hydrogen in bottles, making us all feel a lot safer. We think this is how quality or safety systems should work.
We are used to dealing with potential contaminants from a wide range of industrial sources. Our specialist risk assessment department employs a number of modelling techniques to determine what potential long-term risks could be posed to human health or environmental receptors. But in a slight change to the norm, we’ve recently completed a risk assessment to determine the potential risks posed by a lack of human health!
We were commissioned to assess the suitability of a plot of land for a potential future cemetery. A combination of desk-based research, borehole investigations using our Terrier drill rig and fascinating (!) mass flux/fate transport calculations were used to complete the assessment following Environment Agency guidance.
If you’d like to commission a quantitative risk assessment – either for the living or the dead – then we’d be delighted to assist you. Please contact our risk assessment team for more information.
We’re incredibly proud to have been nominated for a prestigious HSE award by BP Retail. We were the only environmental consultant invited to attend their annual HSE conference, where we were able to participate fully in some interesting and informative ‘brainstorming’ sessions. We look forward to implementing the outcomes from these discussions.
The prestigious Centre Point Building, located at the end of Oxford Street in London, is currently undergoing major refurbishment as its converted from offices to luxury apartments. The work requires additional pile foundations to be installed, both around the building and in the existing basement car parks. The only problem was that no-one could be really certain what else might be in the ground beneath the site.
We were called in to carry out pile probing for the 100+ piles to be installed. Careful planning ensured that we were able to work around the numerous HV cables, tube and Crossrail tunnels beneath the site, identifying obstructions in a number of locations. On such a congested site it was not possible to simply reconfigure the foundations and relocate the piles.
Instead we returned to site and using a DTH hammer, we were able to break up the obstructions in situ, without disturbing the surrounding structures. All part of our Pile Probing Plus service.
For more information please contact Duncan Eastland – 01296 739431
Autumn seems to have arrived with a vengeance. Grey, wet and windy seems to be the order of the day here in the UK. But not for one of our Consultants, who has been spending his time in Haifa, Israel, carrying out an independent review of Israel’s largest remediation project.
We were called in by the Israeli NGO to review a complex remediation project to clean up the historically polluted Kishon River. Silt and sediment dredged from the river is being treated to remove contaminants that have accumulated over decades as a result of effluent discharges from the heavy industries lining the river bank. The treated soil will eventually be used to create a nature reserve and public park. The remediation processes include water treatment using nitrification/denitrification and soil treatment using biopiling and winrows. Soil and water samples are analysed in a sophisticated on site laboratory, allowing progress to be accurately monitored.
We were able to apply our expertise in both remediation and laboratory operations to provide the client with a number of suggested improvements to the project. Getting a sun tan didn’t hurt either!
No-one can say that our workload isn’t varied. Last week one of our drilling crews completed the following schedule:
Monday – Geotechnical investigation including U100 sampling and SPT testing with our Terrier drill rig;
Tuesday – Water well installation using rotary rock roller with our Commachio 205;
Wednesday – Environmental investigation at a filling station using hollow stem augering, again with our Comacchio 205, while a new canopy was being installed;
Thursday and Friday – Deep water well installation using down the hole hammer to penetrate into a limestone aquifer.
We love a bit of variety in life and this week has proved it so. Time for a rest…….next week looks busy………
We get asked a lot of questions about coal vaults: who actually owns them, who is responsible for them and how practical they are to convert into habitable space. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has published this leaflet which gives a useful insight into how they are dealt with by local authorities. If you are thinking of converting your coal vault and would like further information, please contact Duncan Eastland (Tel. 01296 739431).
Ok, that claim may be stretching things a little, but our forensic analysis team have recently notched up a few notable successes. We were awarded a contract to treat petrol and diesel contamination in the soil and groundwater under a filling station. The site had a history of leaks, the most recent of which was six years ago. Since then one of our competitors had been trying (and failing) to clean the site up.
We were brought in to deal with the contamination once and for all. The first thing we did was to carry out some forensic analysis of the contamination using proprietary methods we have developed over the last 20 years. Our analysis indicated that there was an ongoing leak at the site, and was even able to pinpoint where on the site it was likely to be.
Our client commissioned precision tank and line testing which confirmed a slow leak under pump island 7 – just where we had predicted. The rate of leak – 0.29litres/hour – was actually below the precision testing threshold, meaning that the fuel lines passed the test and were certified as ‘not leaking’. However, this rate of leak would result in around 2,500litres of fuel entering the ground under the site each year – more than enough to cause serious contamination.
So the lessons learnt? Firstly, tank and line testing is very far from foolproof and fails to identify leaks that can cause serious environmental issues. Secondly, the timely use of forensic analysis can prevent significant time and money being wasted on ineffective remediation work.
For further information on our forensic analysis capabilities please contact Duncan Eastland or Kate Clark.
