Case Studies

The last place you would expect thousands of pounds worth of damage to be caused would be at a quiet churchyard in West Somerset. Perhaps that was not the intent of the vandals when they clambered all over the recently filled heating oil tank at a Church in Minehead.

Unfortunately due to their antics the storage tank pipe work that feeds the churches boiler was dislodged causing several hundred litres of heating oil to spill out into the surrounding environment.

The spill wasn't immediately noticed and it wasn't until the church became unusually cold that the spill was spotted.

The church rang their insurance company and explained what had happened. The Insurance Company rang their appointed Loss Adjuster for the area who after inspection of the tank contacted our Incident Response Team Leader, Tim Bown.

Tim immediately left for Minehead and was there within 2 hours to commence mitigation of the spill. Unfortunately as the spill had gone unnoticed for such a long period of time the oil had tracked underneath a nearby footpath and spread uneasily close to old graves.

After several weeks of negotiation and consideration between all parties concerned  a solution was agreed that involved removal of as much contaminated material as possible whilst protecting the integrity of existing graves and monuments.
Liaison with the Environment Agency, Local Council, the client and the appointed Loss Adjuster was lead by Tim Bown and supported by our Environmental Consultant contact, Giles Lock of EPS, who was brought in to help with the tracking of the spill and guarantee that all contaminated material had been identified.


Once the solution had been agreed our Incident Response teams began work, a lot of hand digging took place until all contaminated material had been removed. Reinstatement of clean backfill and re-laying of the footpath through the graveyard completed the job.

We also installed new pipe work that was protected by a crash cage, in case the vandals decided to return.

Access to the Church was maintained at all times and no services were disrupted during the work.

The Church Reverend wrote to LCM Environmental after the work had been completed and our teams had left site,

'Mr Bown assisted us in every way, at each stage of the project. We found his professional attention, understanding and sound advice invaluable as we dealt with what was, potentially, a very stressful situation.'

If you are interested in our Incident Management & Response services please contact our Incident Response Team Leader, Tim Bown.

Dorchester Hospital is a District General Hospital serving the population of South Dorset. As with most Hospitals it is forever expanding and increasing its demand for reliable facilities on site.

Like most District Hospitals Dorchester needs to operate 24/7 and manage if there is a power cut, this means that the hospitals fuel storage facilities and supply are critical resources that need to be maintained on a regular basis.

Dorchester Hospital operates a small tank farm that consists of three vertical tanks all of which LCM Environmental were tasked to rotate and polish the fuel in turn. Manned entry to the tanks was carried out for tank cleaning, inspection and maintenance. Fuel lines were also drained and flushed through.

The project required that the installation remained operational throughout; this meant that only one tank could be out of commission at a time.

The project was a success and was completed on time and to our client's specifications.

If you are interested in our OFTEC Tank Cleaning and Fuel Polishing services contact our OFTEC Manager, Alex Hocking.

Over the last twenty years LCM Environmental has carried out projects on the majority of MOD bases and sites throughout the UK. One of those sites is Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth. The 650 acre site is owned and operated by Devonport Management Limited (DML), the dockyard provides berthing, servicing and maintenance for ships of the Royal Navy, Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the Royal Navy's Nuclear Submarines as well as undertaking a limited number of commercial ship build and refits.

Due to the site being one of the MOD's flagship dockyards it is, as you can imagine, hard gaining access to. The level of security required to work on such sites means all our equipment and staff are subject to the MOD's stringent measures.

At LCM Environmental we have worked for the MOD, DML and other contractors on site for many years, we have carried out numerous projects from minor small works to major decommissions. Over those years we have engrained ourselves upon Devonport dockyard and it's contractors with our experience and expertise and we are now their Fuel Storage Facilities specialists.

The dockyard has a number of fuel barges that are towed by tugs to sit alongside approaching or moored vessels to enable them to run as normal whilst their own fuel supply and bunkers are cleaned and maintained. They also serve as refill barges topping up vessels fuel supplies before heading back out to sea.

From time to time these barges need to be cleaned and LCM Environmental has been tasked with the job.

The barges present a few unique issues that we have had to overcome. Obviously as they are situated in the water and some moored off of the dockyard key, the topside of the barges are very small with only one gangplank on and off, the storage tanks situated inside the barge are of an awkward shape and size and the surface of the gangplank and barge can become very slippery. These issues present our teams with a unique high-risk project to plan and carry out.

To add to these hazardous issues, whilst the project was been carried out in early December the weather was cold and icy. All staff wore lifejackets and pressure washed the barge before commencing work, being careful to capture all washings to prevent forcing contaminated water into the River Tamar.

The tank cleans involved manned entry to guarantee the internal space was as clean as possible. All washings were collected in one of our vacuum tankers and transported to a licensed waste disposal site.

Our Tank Cleaning teams worked hard returned the fuel barges' to work on schedule despite the icy weather and hazardous conditions.

If you are interested in our Tank Cleaning services, please contact our Tank Care Project Manager, Nigel Friend.

Earlier this year LCM Environmental was asked to tender for a Site Decommission and Remediation project at a garage forecourt in Christchurch, Dorset. With the tender excepted we began planning the project in conjunction with Arcadis GMI.

We attended site and started to demolish the forecourt shop and car wash, once they were down and all materials were removed from site, we installed sheet piling to protect the boundary of the site and a public footpath, which ran alongside the boundary. Once the sheet piling was in place we began to excavate and dispose of soils from two potentially contaminated areas on the site.

From previous works and records we were aware that the site had a high water table and that the excavations would need to be de-watered using an on site separator before a remediation system could be installed, the extent of the water level is clearly visible in the images you can see.

When the excavations were cleared and de-watered our teams installed three separate remediation systems, under the supervision of Arcadis GMI, once the systems were in place they were covered with shingle and the water trapped within the system was sprinkled with an Oxygen Releasing Compound to aid the release of the Hydrocarbons within the water and soils.

The excavations were then backfilled using recycled crushed concrete and the site leveled off.

The remediation system was secured with a breathable cover so that the Oxygen Releasing Compound working on breaking down the Hydrocarbons could release its byproduct (Oxygen) into the air and not the soil.

The remediation system will stay in situ until it is deemed that the levels of Hydrocarbons have dropped to a satisfactory level.

If you would like any more information regarding Site Decommissioning and Remediation services please feel free to contact our Tank Care Project Manager, Nigel Friend.

A project carried out by LCM Environmental in May 2007 involved the removal of three semi-buried fuel tanks from the MOD base adjacent to Newquay airport.

Each tank had been specially designed and built to carry out the needs of a multi functional MOD base. The tanks were semi-buried in steel lined concrete and each tank consisted of the following specifications,

Capacity  235,000 litres
Weight    32 tons
Length    23 metres
Height    4.1 metres

Once the tank were de-gassed, cleaned and broken free from their cradles two seventy-two ton cranes were brought in to lift them on to specially designed and manufactured rollers. When in place on the rollers the tanks were rotated ninety degrees to fit onto the specially ordered low loader lorries.

The transportation of the tanks to Goole in West Yorkshire required movement orders and police escorts from the airport.

The project was completed on time and to all of our clients specifications. If you would like more information on our Tank Removal services please contact our Tank Care Project Manager Nigel Friend.