THE WHITCHURCH ARM is now closed, and the breach area extended with the building of the bund, writes Alan Yates.
17-09-26
Waterproof membrane added to 'canal side' of bund.
Good teamwork from the Kier crew led to an efficient deployment.
The result is a very smart bund.
Just wooden beams
Stop planks delivered but turned out to be just wooden beams not fully machined to length and fitted with lifting hoops.
So Kier staff had to set about making stop planks out of the supplied material. The beams were cut to length and the ends chamfered to fit the slots.
However, they were installed flat not vertical—and with no handles. This will make removal 'interesting'? Wood floats which caused confusion for a while until it was figured out how to keep the submersed planks in place. .
Why did CRT not supply pukka stop planks so the Kier staff just had to fit them?
Also there should have had a 'canal maintenance engineer' on site to supervise and show them the proper 'one man' way to fit stop planks and stay safe and dry.
Maybe there's no one left in CRT that knows how?
Did a good job
In the end the Kier staff were left to it and did a good job all things considered. (Kier has a multi skilled and willing workforce on site—impressed).
Hardly an efficient way of working though?
18-09-26
The water level in Arm falls by 1" in 24 hour! (before tarpaulin applied), indicating a leak in the arm. The stonework around the lift bridge is the chief suspect but no one knows for sure.
Tarpaulin fitted over the stop planks—why?
The tarpaulin also extends over brickwork of the lift bridge and in so doing may cut off the leak. We'll see?
Not having canal experience
Again not having canal experience showed here too. Lock keepers and lengthsmen would have fitted the stop planks then simply deposited ash into the watered side, This in due course should have sealed any leaks as the planks expanded.
Hence no tarpaulin required. More wasted time.
Submersible pump dropped into the canal (main line) at the bund end and a generator to supply it installed behind the northerly end portakabin.
The pump is now running. Looks like a good flow and will take the water level down to a suitable level to enable the fish rescue, then cut off.
[Thanks to the Kier workforce for allowing the drones to record.]
Thanks also to the drone operators :-