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SPOSH? POSH? What’s in an Acronym?

Drilling with Terrier

SPOSH? POSH? (insert baffling acronym of your choice here). Sometimes our industry really makes a meal of what should be a simple process. How do you determine if a site is contaminated or not? We think the answer is simple: do a decent site investigation!

We have recently been working at site that proved to be a classic example of a ‘cheap’ site investigation saving nothing. The original investigation was carried out by others four years ago. After many other consultants were hired but failed to provide any clear answers (or any answers at all) we were commissioned to break the impasse.

We constructed 180 boreholes on a 5m grid using one of our dynamic sampling rigs. Boreholes and sampling locations were surveyed using GPS allowing us to develop a 3D contaminant profile of the site. Finally
sufficient information is now available to allow our client to make sensible decisions regarding future use and/or remedial strategy for the site. All this without resorting to any obscure and baffling acronyms.

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Subadra Awarded Multi-Site Portfolio

We have been awarded the contract to carry out pre-redevelopment site investigations at a portfolio of approximately 30 filling stations across the UK for a major fuel retailer. The contract requires both environmental and geotechnical assessment of each site. Key to our successful bid was the fact that we will be carrying out all the work using our own drilling rigs and our own UKAS/MCerts laboratory, allowing us to be confident of meeting the very demanding project deadlines. This contract confirms our position as the UK’s #1 environmental consultancy in the retail fuel sector.

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Water, Water Everywhere

Treatment System in Operation

We are currently assisting in the treatment of construction wastewater from a filling station redevelopment in Dorset. Working with the primary works contractor, we provided a system that is capable of pumping and treating high volumes of hydrocarbon-contaminated water from deep excavations.

Our in house designed, modular treatment plant was efficiently dealt with two both suspended solids and hydrocarbon contamination, ensuring all the effluent met the site’s discharge licence conditions.

We installed and tested the system at an early stage of the works allowing us to collect and analyse samples in our UKAS accredited laboratory and use this information to assist in obtaining a temporary discharge license from the local sewerage undertaker. This meant the
contractor was able to discharge effluent direct to the foul sewer.

With the high costs and project delays associated with tankering hydrocarbon-contaminated wastewater from site our fully mobile and modular dewatering systems are a simple and cost effective way of dealing with dewatering effluent.

Project value: less than £10k

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Motorway Service Area Investigation

Earlier this month we were awarded a contract to investigate the forecourt area at a motorway service area in southern England, for a major oil company, as part of a leasehold transition.
With data from over thirty boreholes and monitoring wells this was a relatively detailed investigation for forecourt investigation. However, our client understood that carrying our a comprehensive combined environmental and geotechnical ground investigation at an early stage invariable pays saves money in the long run.
We used our GeoProbe direct-push drilling system to construct boreholes, targeting key areas such as the below-ground fuel tanks, fuel lines and forecourt interceptor. We then analysed the soil and groundwater samples for our hydrocarbon suite at our own UKAS
accredited laboratory.
Our investigation report has provided our client with a detailed baseline study confirming ground quality and highlighting any areas of contamination at the time they took over mangement of the site.
Contract value £25k

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Lab Flies Through UKAS Audit

Last week saw the arrival of two UKAS auditors to carry out their annual inspection of our laboratory. Most years this is a ‘surveillance’ visit completed in a day but every four years UKAS carry out a root and branch review of everything that we do. This year was one of those years.But after comprehensively checking, witnessing and reviewing everything our lab does, UKAS confirmed our accreditation to ISO17025 and MCerts standards. This means that our can continue to offer the fastest turnaround for soil and water analysis in the UK, with over 90% of all results provided within 5 working days. For further information contact Kate Clark on 01296 739423.

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Subadra Go Bananas

Replacement Pipework

We certainly get to work at a wide variety of different sites, but a call from a major banana distributor was a first even for us. The underground pipework carrying fuel to supply their trucks had failed and required urgent replacement. At short notice we were on site replacing the corroded steel pipework with modern plastic equivalents. We sampled the soil around the failed pipework and our in-house laboratory was able to confirm within 24 hours that no significant ground contamination had occurred. Within 36 hours the fuel supply system was back in commission and the banana trucks had started rolling again.

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Black Gold?

Sadly not in this case. But what do you do if you’re digging a hole and it fills with a horrible mixture of black fuel and water? Call Subadra of course! We are able to guide you with all aspects of contaminated ground from waste disposal or how to minimise the impact on your development programme to how to discharge your planning conditions.
The site  in the photo is a filling station that is currently undergoing a full site redevelopment. When the contractor opened up the forecourt to remove the below ground fuel tanks the excavation filled with a heady mix of petrol and diesel that had accumulated over the years around the off-set fill points.
We were on-site within 2hours of being contacted. We collected water and soil samples from the excavation that were run through our in-house hydrocarbon laboratory. The results were issued within 48hours allowing the contractor to efficiently deal with the soil disposal and avoid costly delays to the works programme.

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Subadra Appointed to Advise Retail Motor Industry Federation

Subadra have been appointed by the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) to provide specialist environmental advice to their members. The RMI represents the interests of petrol retailers and forecourt operators across the UK. They provide support on matters ranging from contaminated fuel problems to getting a better deal with your fuel supplier.
We join their technical support team in providing practical and sensible advise for all matters associated with fuel leaks, spills and ground contamination issues.
Whether you need guiding through the planning process during a site redevelopment or you suspect you may have had a fuel leak – we can help.
Please contact James Edley(Tel. 01296 739412 or email) for further information.

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Remediation Following Filling Station Fuel Leak

It’s not often that we post anything about our remediation projects. Mostly this is because they are often covered by confidentiality agreements and sometimes because they are too complex to be neatly summarised in a few paragraphs. So it’s nice to be able to report the successful completion of a remediation project at a filling station site in London. Over the Christmas holiday one of the tanks at the site was found to be leaking. The site is located in a very sensitive area environmentally: in a source protection zone and directly above London’s chalk aquifer. Despite the holiday festivities, we were able to mobilise a drilling team to the site. Our investigation quickly delineated the contaminated soil, with our in-house laboratory reporting their analysis results within 48 hours of sampling. This in turn meant we were able to excavate and treat the soil before the leaked fuel had a chance to penetrate to the underlying aquifer, saving our client from having to carry out a costly and time consuming groundwater treatment.

Contract Value £10-20k

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Subadra Upgrade Geoprobe

Following an extremely busy few months our hard-working Geoprobe drill rig has had a week off the road for its annual overhaul and re-spray. We took the opportunity to add a diamond coring facility to the rig for coring concrete pavement/forecourts. Now, not only can we offer 30m+ of drilling productivity per day, but we’re even neater doing it!