Well, in our case the answer is very safe indeed. We’ve just completed our annual HSE audit, carried out by an independent auditor on our clients’ behalf, and scored a record 93%.
The auditors praised PrismERP, the IT system we have developed over the last decade for both managing HSE and integrating it into every aspect of our operations. With further upgrades to PrismERP planned for the coming year, we are determined to get an even higher score next time round.
PrismERP is commercially available. If you’d like to know more about how it might help your organisation please contact Duncan Eastland.
Maybe we are cynical but we usually reckon we can rely on the weather to be cold and raining, or even snowing, anytime we are asked to carry out sitework at night. So it made a pleasant change to find ourselves at the end of Runway 27R at Heathrow on a warm summer’s night last week. As a Heathrow Approved Contractor we’d been asked to carry out some urgent groundwater assessment work and because our staff and vehicles hold ‘access all areas’ passes for Heathrow, we were able to be on site quickly and with the minimum of fuss.
For more information regarding our site investigation and remediation capabilities at airports, please contact James Skinner – 01296 739411
The latest prosecution by the Environment Agency of a filling station operator has resulted in a record fine of £8 million. The Environment Agency’s investigation found the leak resulted from the operator’s failure to address a known issue with the fuel delivery system and an inadequate alarm system. It was compounded by “poor” emergency procedures. The leak affected local residents and local watercourses, with leaked fuel entering the Langwood Brook resulting in fish kill. County councillor Albert Atkinson, deputy leader of Lancashire County Council, said: “The fact the leak was allowed to continue for more than 24 hours undoubtedly contributed to a risk of harm to people living and working nearby, as well as emergency services attending the incident.”
We believe that this case marks a change in approach from the Environment Agency, with a focus on prosecution under health and safety legislation rather than the available environmental regulations. The resulting fine of £8 million was significantly higher than fines levied for similar incidents prosecuted for polluting controlled waters.
Drilling has tradionally been pretty poorly regulated. Light cable percussion rigs (more commonly known as shell and auger rigs) still dominate the UK drilling market. They are crude, simple to operate and provide low quality samples but they live on because they are relatively cheap.
One reason they are cheap is that their operators are unqualified. Drilling has been seen as a job not a career. But lack of proper training has led to a woeful safety record; it is rare to see a 40-something shell and auger driller who still has all his fingers intact.
The British Drilling Association (BDA) has been working hard for some time now to encourage clients and consultants to require drillers working for them to hold a professional qualification – in this case an NVQ in Land Drilling. All our drillers hold this qualification. Our latest trainee, Alex, completed his NVQ this week.
If you’d like to know that your drilling requirement is going to be fulfilled safely and professionally then we’d be love to talk to you. Please contact Angus Gale (Tel: 07748 358304) for more information.
…or, more accurately in this case, sharing the knowledge. For the past 18 months we’ve been providing expert advice to the Israel Environment Ministry regarding remediation works to clean up the Kishon River, near Haifa.
On our last visit we were asked to conduct a seminar on sampling techniques, sharing best practice with the project team. We certainly appreciated the opportunity to be out sampling in the field in 35 degree temperatures; a nice change from the rain-soaked June being enjoyed back home.
If you’d like to know more about the specialist training that we offer please contact Duncan Eastland
A prominent pipeline client came to us with a problem. A ‘positive’ problem that is. A section of their pipeline runs underground next to a railway line. The railway’s overhead high voltage power lines were causing an amplified positive electrode potential in the ground, which in turn was leading to increased corrosion of their pipeline. In these cases, cathodic protection is the usual solution.
A typical cathodic protection system would comprise a series of shallow earthing rods installed at regular intervals along the pipeline. However, this requires access for maintenance in the future to the entire pipeline. But these pipelines run for hundreds of miles through agricultural land, some of which is only accessible during certain periods of the year. The solution was to design a single anode string capable of achieving the required negative electrode potential in a vertical design. Thus saving on space, maintenance and cost
The client’s senior cathodic protection engineer approached us to see if we could drill a 75m deep borehole and undertake the (negative) anode installation. We took the challenge and set about devising a safe method for installing a multi core anode string weighing more than 300kg! The borehole was installed through 18m of gravel into underlying mudstone. Just to complicate matters further, our environmental appraisal identified a potential risk of penetrating into a sandstone aquifer beneath the mudstone. To mitigate these risks and achieve the required potential we had to install a vent pipe to the base of the borehole, a tonne of coke, gravel and a bentonite seal at the top of the mudstone to ensure the underlying aquifer was protected.
Exactly how we did all this is our secret but needless to say it involved a large rig, and unusually for us, a lot of “negativity” ………….But happy pipeline equals happy client – now that’s positive.
We’re pleased to be able to report that we have recently scored 96% in a Health and Safety Audit conducted by one of our clients, a major oil company. The score recognises the significant investment – of both time and money – we have made to ensure that we aren’t just ‘good enough’ when it comes to the management of health and safety, but that we are the ‘best of the best’.
If you’d like to know more about how we manage health and safety, including our bespoke Prism.NET software solution, then please contact Duncan Eastland – Tel: 01296 739431
It’s never good when your business premises are reduced to ash in a raging inferno. But this was just the scenario faced by one of our clients, when their car showr0om and repair workshop has burnt down overnight.
We were on hand the next day, working closely with both the fire brigade and the demolition crew. We were able to obtain the vital geotechnical data necessary to allow design for the new buildings to progress.
Here you can see our Terrier rig taking soil samples and completing in situ standard penetration tests and dynamic probes to depths of up to 15m.
Now the flames have died out, the demolition has been completed and the new structure has been designed. Our client is well on the way to be back in business.
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.
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.
