Drilling Starts Opposite Water Tower Wood

Just a quick update on the status of the ground investigations on the land adjacent to water tower wood. Contractors acting on behalf of Midlothian Council brought in drilling equipment 2 days ago. They are coring out soil samples to attempt to establish the cause of the land slip. Early results from a drill depth of around 8 metres is that they have hit boulder clay and now a solid boulder too large to drill through (it may even be the rock level). I gather that glacial activity causes these layers of boulder clay. They are impermeable and therefore water will not percolate into the layers below. With an increase in the amount of water hitting this area, that may be the cause of the slip.

This morning the drill rig is being moved since they cannot penetrate the boulder having spent most of yesterday making little progress. As well as the move of this rig, another rig is being delivered and that is being moved into place on the footpath steps as I write.

It is tempting to post that fracking has arrived to Dalkeith since these rigs do look incredibly similar to fracking equipment.😈

Nice bunch of lads working on the coring. Couple of chatty Glaswegians and an Irish site manager with excellent customer care skills. It's a wee bit noisy with the drill going most of the day, and the wet and mud is not pleasant as the ground surface is being churned up. However, churning up the ground is a good thing if we are to have our promised wild flower meadow along the cemetery wall side of the footpath. Seeing this path opened up for access for the drill equipment makes it obvious how lovely this section of path could be. If the steps to Ironmills are too expensive to repair, let's hope that the cemetery wall path is at least improved in the future. Maybe even a new access route could be created somewhere else along the bank? That's what a lot of passers by are suggesting to me as a possible alternative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_clay