THE WORK TO REPAIR THE BREACH that occurred at Whitchurch on the LLangollen Canal is progressing.
Work to reinstate field that was flooded using material recovered from the site is now completed with land drains being installed and covered with topsoil.
This is expected to be complete by the end of this week and then reconstruction of the embankment will begin, but there is a problem.
Too high clay content
This is as laboratory testing has shown that the material recovered from the site contains too high a clay content to be suitable for reuse for the embankment, so as a result imported granular material will be used in conjunction with a polymer geogrid to form the new embankment.
The canal channel will be concrete to prevent a further breach but its design is still being finalised, with further details provided once they become available.
Water continues to be pumped around the breach to supply both the waterway and the reservoir, but the pumps at present do not have the capacity required so additional pumps are being installed to provide greater resilience and increased pumping capacity.