Following an underground fire, the Daw Mill colliery was closed in March 2013. Since then work has been underway to put the fire out and make the site safe, while also removing all of the above ground structures. A major part of this work has involved filling in the 2 mineshafts, which required a specially engineered cover plate to be constructed. This work has been undertaken by ECS Engineering Services in conjunction with JMC on behalf of the Coal Authority.
Under normal conditions, a mineshaft would be decommissioned by removing all the underground equipment in a controlled manner using carefully scheduled plans. However, in this case the mine had to be evacuated as soon as the fire broke out and it has not been safe for anyone to re-enter since. As a result, a different approach has been devised, whereby the operation to seal the two shafts is completed purely from work carried out on the surface.
Daw Mill mined a five metre thick seam of coal known as the Warwickshire Thick, with 2 shafts extending down to approximately 550m along with an inclined drift, which was used to convey the coal out of the mine. Now that the mine has been closed, the initial priorities are to extinguish the underground fire by cutting off the air supply and isolating the mine water from the local aquifer.
In fact, the two tasks will be accomplished simultaneously since the mineshafts will need to be closed to remove the oxygen supply to the fire and in doing so material that is used to fill the mineshafts will include two carefully positioned clay plugs that will keep the mine water separate from the aquifer. The specifications for the various materials to be used and location of the clay plugs has been approved by the Environment Agency, which has a responsibility for the local water supplies...
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ECS Engineering Services Ltd :
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Email: jwesley@ecsengineeringservices.com
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24 фев 2014
