The UK Coal Authority has awarded a contract worth almost half a million pounds for environmental data management services to Vancouver-headquartered firm Aquatic Informatics.
Image: Wheal Jane water treatment scheme
The Coal Authority generates large volumes of environmental data through the part of its business which manages the environmental legacy of mining across the UK. The Authority operates over 75 mine water treatment schemes that remove contaminating metals from mine water prior to the treated water being discharged into a receiving watercourse.
Within the last thirty years or so, as coal production in the UK has reduced so have the underground pumping arrangements. This has allowed underground water levels to rise and outbreaks to occur at the surface. The Authority currently operates a number of mine water treatment schemes in order to remediate existing discharges and prevent new discharges from coal mine workings.
Schemes include:
- complex process engineering plants
- pumped wet wells and boreholes / mineshafts
- totally natural (passive) schemes without a power source.
All treatment schemes are subject to regulatory consents and licenses - the majority comprise of aeration cascades, settlement ponds and reed beds.
The Coal Authority has an extensive monitoring network across the mine water treatment schemes monitoring performance. A wider network of boreholes and sampling locations is used to monitor changes in ground water level (monitoring mine water recovery across coalfields) and water quality within mine workings and at untreated mine water discharges.
Total number of monitoring locations in place is currently around 2,000 – however, this could rise to nearer 3,000 as new treatment schemes are built or treatment trials carried out.
Environmental data collected across the treatment schemes and monitoring network includes;
- laboratory analysis of water and solids
- onsite water quality measurements
- hydrometry data including manual and logged stage and flow readings from weirs and spot
- flow gauging
- telemetered process data (such as pump rates or electric metering)
- manual and logged water level and temperature measurements from boreholes or mine shafts,
- logged rainfall data
- manual or logged gas data and solid samples of lagoon sludge.
The Coal Authority went out to tender for a single data storage system to consolidate all its environmental data sets, incorporate data processing, quality checking and editing tools and make the data more accessible for use across the business.
Total estimated value of the contract which will run for an initial term of 5 years, with further extension options available, is £498,182.
Canadian-headquartered company Aquatic Informatics were one of nine firms who bid for the work.
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