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Probing the Depths……

Pile Probing Rig

…of Central London in this case. Subadra has completed a week of pile probing at a cramped development site in Central London. Despite obstacles such as leaking water mains, piling rigs and deep excavations we successfully probed sixty locations to verify the presence of below ground obstacles that might impede the construction of the engineers’ piled foundation solution and contiguous boundary piles. The contractor used this information to target additional ground clearance the key areas of concern.
Contract value: <£5k

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Save Our Sprouts!

Allotment holders in Great Kingshill are rejoicing at the results of our recent soil testing that has confirmed the soil at the site is not contaminated as a result of fly-tipping and that they don’t have to pull up their winter brassica. The sprouts for Christmas dinner have been saved! For more details see Bucks Free Press.

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Satisfying Planning Conditions

Look What We Found....

Environmental planning conditions are commonplace in brownfield development and much of our work is involved in the negotiation of discharge of such conditions. We have developed excellent relationships with Planning Authorities and Environment Agency/Scottish Environment Protection Agency over the years and enjoy a good success rate in planning condition discharge.

Earlier in the year Subadra were commissioned to assist in a significant phased retail development on the south coast of England. The site is within Zone I of a Source Protection Zone, overlies Chalk and is 40m from surface water. In other words it is in an extremely environmentally sensitive location. Initial investigation works had identified diesel and waste oil in shallow groundwater under the site.

This is where owning our own drill rigs and our own laboratory comes into play! We were able to delineate and characterise the contamination, and install sentinel wells within a month and without delaying the build programme. As a result of our detailed assessment, we’ve negotiated a long-term remedial solution for the site, installed the required groundworks and construction works have commenced.

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When Wetstock Monitoring Doesn’t Work

It has become increasingly common in recent years for filling station operators to rely on remote wetstock monitoring to detect possible leaks in their system. Tank and pump gauges are monitored remotely with sophisticated trend analysis used to detect abnormal behaviour. These systems can be very good, but they aren’t infallible.

Last year Subadra were retained to clean up contamination resulting from a leak at a filling station. Our treatment was completed successfully over the winter months and by mid-summer we had started post-remedial monitoring, with groundwater samples taken at monthly intervals from monitoring wells we had installed at the site.

Our consultants noticed some anomalous results appearing and, in best CSI fashion, our laboratory carried out a programme of forensic analysis. This was able to determine the ‘age’ of the contamination we were finding, telling us how long the leaked fuel had been in the ground. This confirmed that the wells were being contaminated from a new source.

The site’s real-time remote wetstock monitoring was checked but didn’t show a leak at the site. However, on our advice, the site operator had the tanks and lines pressure tested and this identified a steady slow leak from one of the pumps. Repairs were carried out limiting the volume of fuel lost into the ground.

The moral of the tale? Well, remote wetstiock monitoring is very good and we would certainly recommend it. But it’s not infallible. In those cases, forensic analysis can help identify leaks that wetstock monitoing misses.

If you’d like to know more about our forensic analysis service or any of the other services offered by our UKAS/MCerts accredited laboratory please contact Kate Clark.

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Food Wholesaler/Distributor Retains Subadra

Subadra have been retained by a major food wholesaler/distributor to carry out a comprehensive audit/investigation of the fuel storage and supply infrastructure at a multi-site portfolio across the UK. Key to winning the contract was our ability to complete the project within a tight timescale. This is only possible because of our unique approach whereby every aspect of the project will be carried out using in house resources, from borehole drilling through to laboratory analysis; and, of course, our competitive rates!

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Tight Deadlines?

Tight Acquisition Deadline?

Sometimes you need a detailed ground investigation with large numbers of boreholes, utilising a variety of different investigation tools (drill rigs, plate bearing tests, pile probing etc), with data collected and assimilated over a period of days or even weeks, that delivers a detailed description of site geology and provides a well defined contaminant delineation.We can do this for you.

However, sometimes you need a basic no frills contamination survey that is both cost effective and done on a very fast turnaround.Here at Subadra we own and operate our own survey team, drill rigs, chemical analysis laboratory in addition to our team of highly skilled geotechnical and environmental consultants that are responsible for collating, assessing and the reporting the data we produce. This means we can carry out high quality, cost effective Phase One and Two contamination surveys within days.This service proves invaluable for may of out clients who are always on the lookout to purchase new sites to add to their portfolio and don’t want to lose out on a lucrative deal or, perhaps worse, get caught out by discovering contamination issues after the site has been purchased.

We recently carried out a survey at a filling station site in Hampshire that was instructed on a Friday at 4pm and we had carried out a below ground utilities survey, borehole investigation, groundwater monitoring and sampling, all analysis and data reported to the client by the following Thursday. Now how does that compare with the service you currently receive from your consultant?
Contract value: £4.5k
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Enthusing the Next Generation of Earth Scientists

Drilling at St Mary's School

When we discovered that Year 3/4 at St Mary’s CE Primary School in Amersham were learning about soils as their science topic this term we were pleased to put one of our drill rigs to a slightly more educational use. We offered to drill a shallow borehole in the playing field to demonstrate the soil profile below the school. We provided three soil cores in plastic liners for later inspection in class. Our drill team has never been cheered on by anyone before – perhaps there are a few budding engineering geologists in Amersham.

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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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Mother’s Ruin – Piling Probing at Bombay Sapphire’s New Gin Distillery

The Bombay Spirits Company are building a new gin distillery and visitors’ centre on the site of an old paper mill in Laverstoke, Hampshire.
The mill is registered by English Heritage and is considered of significant historical importance; during the first half of the century the site held the license to print money for the Bank of England. Wherever possible existing buildings are being retained and restored to their former glory. However, the mill was first established on the site in the early 1700s so many of the buildings need some serious TLC before they can again become usable. This includes improvements to foundations in some cases.
Subadra were called in to assist in the redevelopment, Project Manta, as a specialist in ground conditions and foundations to carry out pile probing around the perimeter and inside of one of the old mill buildings located on the banks of the River Test, which flows through the centre of the site.
We probed 25 locations in a single day using one of our highly manoeuvrable tracked drilling rigs, which proved perfect for the job. We identified shallow obstructions at several locations, allowing the project engineers to revise their piling plan and ultimately reduce costs and delays to the foundation improvement works.

Gin Distillery

We then carried out plate bearing tests, prior to piling, to confirm the surface soils could provide a suitable platform for the piling rig.

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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.