A specialist team from Lanes Drainage Services UK is carrying out a full site CCTV drainage survey as part of planned maintenance at a large cement factory.
Drainage engineers from the Lanes Chester depot are carrying out the site investigation at the Padeswood cement works near Mold, in Flintshire, North Wales.
They will create a drainage map for foul and surface water systems, detailing the make up and condition of all drainage assets on the site.
Plan future maintenance
Rachael Humphreys, Sustainability Analyst at Heidelberg Materials UK, which owns the cement works, said: “It’s important that our drainage systems are maintained to a high standard.
“We have a statutory responsibility to ensure no potential contaminants leave our site, and clearly one of the key pathways for this to happen would be through the drainage system.
“The survey report provided by Lanes will allow us to plan future maintenance tasks and to demonstrate we are meeting our regulatory responsibilities.”
Lanes is deploying a CCTV drainage survey unit supported by a jet vac tanker at the site, which has been used to manufacture cement for over 70 years and is one of the area’s main employers.
Meeting national standards
The pipe system on the site is a mix of clay and concrete pipes with diameters ranging from 150mm to 900mm, plus slot drainage.
Surface water is channelled into a 35,000 litre oil and petrol interceptor before being stored in a large lagoon on the site.
Only water tested and proven to meet standards set by National Resources Wales can be released into a brook that runs past the site.
Process water is managed separately, with some of it recycled into the manufacturing system.
Sian Wyn Jones, Area Development Manager at Lanes Chester, said: “Heidelberg Materials UK is doing exactly the right thing in assessing the condition of its drainage system.
“It’s best practice to carry out regular site surveys as part of planned preventative maintenance. Only then can clear priorities be set for ongoing maintenance and remediation.
“This is even more important with climate change making weather more volatile.
“More frequent periods of heavy rainfall associated with global warming could increase the risk of blockage problems and flash flooding, especially if the drain lines are not regularly cleaned.”
Two CCTV camera systems
During the full site drainage survey, which will be completed over a number of visits, the jet vac tanker will be used to remove silt and other waste material from drain lines.
This will leave them clear and ready to be surveyed.
The CCTV drainage survey team uses two remote access camera systems. One is a push-rod system with a mini camera attached to the end of flexible rod that can be pushed into narrow diameter pipes.
The other is a wheeled robotic crawler camera that can be sent along pipes.
Both systems record HD colour video to show the structure and condition of pipes and allow the location long a pipe of any contamination or defects to be plotted.