There's a hole, and top engineers are looking into it. Not seen for a couple of centuries, the outlet pipe in the base of the dam. From here, water flows into the canal when the valve is open. Picture by Staffordshire County Dam Team, and posted on LDC's Dam Blog.
I see that after a five week hiatus, there’s been an uncharacteristically useful update on the Lichfield District Council Chasewater Dam Blog, with some interesting information about the outlet culvert and valve controls system. The post has actually come from Staffordshire Councty Council, now in charge of the project since Lichfield’s disastrous attempts to do it themselves.
As ever, the real straight talking comes in a couple of excellent news updates by top wildlife expert and Chasewater user Graham Evans, on the Chasewater Wildlife Group’s news page. Those looking for an imminent start to refilling will, however, be disappointed. Mind you, with the lack of rain and the fact that the cofferdam is currently sealing off the output drain, I think it’s making little difference at the moment. Until the Swag refills, the main lake will only get runoff anyway, which in the current conditions amounts to next to nothing.
My thanks to several readers who tipped me off about this. Cheers, folks.
Inside the culvert, CCTV video still taken from inspection camera, possibly on crawler or ROV. The void above is a stopping-up access previously undiscovered. Picture by Staffordshire Councty Dam Team and posted on LDC's Dam Blog.
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Bob, on the excellent Chasewater Blog, there is mention of a ‘legal deadline’ for works to be completed by October 2011. Any ideas what this means?
Theoretically, the dam works have to be completed by that date to meet safety legislation coming into force then. This was largely a straw man put in place by LDC when they ran late and exceeded their own deadlines; their answer was a rather waffly ‘we have to be complete by this time’ – even though it was quite clear they knew it wouldn’t be.
In reality there’s very unlikely to be any consequences as the dam poses no threat (there’s no water behind it right now!) and because the work is being carried out.
When things were going tits up, there were all kinds of diversionary crap quoted by LDC, much of which was utter cobblers. One only has to look at the agonising over ‘filter material’ and the subsequent solution by the Staffs Team who didn’t use anything nearly as exotic.
Best wishes
Bob
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