Reducing water processing costs for borehole users

October 26^th was an important day for the team here; our colleague John Calder was one of the expert speakers at the Enviro Water Borehole Users Conference 2016, which was attended by around 150 professionals.

A key theme of the Conference was the effect that a borehole has on the organisation using it. Speakers delved deeply into the subject of land formation and the source of water, and how it leads to the borehole. The focus during the morning was on how borehole professionals can protect the water supply and maintain its quality, therefore reducing processing costs at a later stage, as well as protecting the environment.

The focus of the afternoon was on how to get the water out of the ground, and how to get it working as effectively as possible. The audience gained insight into how to specify a pump, using the different factors of specification, and how to prevent pump failure.

This led onto the subject of power and control.  One of the key points was the huge savings that can be made by understanding the whole borehole and pumping system, along with having a really good grasp of the demand that your organisation requires.  Simple modifications may be made on existing systems which will increase efficiency and reduce costs; these often include the use of a variable speed drives.

The day concluded with a Q&A session with the top three borehole drillers in the UK, who emphasised the importance of having high quality borehole installations, the value of good maintenance, and also the need to instigate some professional standards for borehole work. They explained, “At the moment there are no standards on how to drill a borehole, although there are common accepted practices. We debated whether there should or should not be set standards to regulate installations and stop waste and the argument veered towards a ‘yes’.”