National Borehole Decommissioning Project

The Environment Agency (EA) Groundwater Area Implementation Group (GWAIG) have adopted a strategic approach to borehole decommissioning by initiating the National Borehole Decommissioning Project (NBDP). The NBDP currently requires external technical support over the next five-years to survey redundant boreholes and urgently remediate or decommission any high-risk boreholes that are located across the country. The EA GW Level Monitoring Network (GWLMN) comprises of approximately 5,000 active boreholes of our own and other private boreholes. The GWLMN has evolved over a long period of time from regional groundwater level monitoring networks that were first established by the water authorities. This network of GWLMN boreholes and wells is now used by the Environment Agency (EA) to assess the condition of water resources, support drought management decisions, assist in flood forecasting, evaluate WFD compliance, etc. The EA GW Teams constantly review the validity of the GWLMN and if a borehole is judged as being redundant it is now transferred across to the NBDP. To date, 2,496 redundant boreholes have been identified on a Master Information Request Spreadsheet (MIRS) as assets for further investigation. The aim of this commission is to provide technical support to identify and survey a catalogue of redundant boreholes that has been compiled during a comprehensive desk-based survey. Currently, 421 redundant boreholes have been surveyed, leaving an outstanding number of 2,075 redundant boreholes to be surveyed. This commission builds on previous work performed since 2017.