On the 28th October 2015 Drilcorp Ltd attended Borehole Users Conference held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, East Midlands Airport. The conference targeted an audience of borehole owners, operators, consultants and contractors. Topics this year were aimed at regulation and best practices in the private water supply sectors.
On arrival delegates were offered information packs and light breakfast refreshments. The conference room hosted various trade stands ranging from Borehole drilling & maintenance companies (Drilcorp were once again delighted to be exhibiting at this year’s conference) to companies selling borehole related products.
This year’s delegates included bottled water companies, wild life parks, drilling companies, local authorities and European guests. Networking was encouraged throughout the event and several debates took place in order to highlight the many views of those in attendance.
David Banks, Holymoor Consultancy was the first speaker of the morning. David’s presentation highlighted the areas around Water Quality & Chemistry.
This charismatic gentleman dressed in a Harris Tweed suit began his talk with quotes from a play: An Enemy of the People (I tell you-the gravest possible danger to the public health! All the nastiness up at Mølledal, all that stinking filth, is infecting the water in the conduit-pipes leading to the reservoir; and the same cursed, filthy poison oozes out on the shore too).
He went on to talk about water quality in different sectors, different properties in water and how water users favoured different water quality. For example agriculture would favour water which was nitrate rich and the laundry industries would not favour hard water or water containing iron and manganese.
The talk included Water quality parameters and chemistry of water, finishing on Uranium and Radon in water this of course appealing to the water bottlers present.( from November Radon will be a test added to bottled water quality) I was able to catch a few minutes of his time afterwards to ask him a few question on acidising of boreholes ( he has written a few papers on the subject)
Other speakers included Nick Barsby, ALS Environmental, talking about the Role of the Laboratory and the testing of water samples. Dr Phil Ham Envireau Water addressed the benefits of borehole design. After lunch there were two French Guests from Afnor (Boreholes French Standardization) who talked about French Borehole construction and best practice.
A panel discussion with Q&A followed which highlighting the many views of those in attendance.
The day concluded with a talk from Rupert Dixon, Drinking Water Inspectorate on borehole construction and regulations. Rupert showed shocking examples of borehole locations, construction and water treatment.
The day was packed with interesting facts and interesting people, both speakers and delegates. The purpose of the event was to generate interest in the regulation of private water supply boreholes & a BS that governs borehole design.
One area that was agreed on was that the phase size doesn’t matter. If you abstract water from the ground it doesn’t matter if you are a large user drilling a water well or a small farm looking for private water supply, you should be registered with the local authority.
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Author: Mike Bushby, Drilcorp Contracts Manager Engineering
