Cofferdam Almost Complete. Breach 22, 17th February

My phone pinged this afternoon with a notification from Mark Penn. More photos from his drone above the breach site. So I cleaned my hands off from glue and paint to take a look.

The western end of the cofferdam is now fully in place. The piles have been driven down and now resemble the piling along the towpath. There are two people in a small boat working on the dam.

On the offside bank there are six pipes that look like they are attached to a floating pontoon. This is where the water from the canal is now being piped out and around the breach site.

No piles are sitting in the field, I suspect they are awaiting more to arrive.

The level in the drain below the breach looks lower again, but the amount of water coming through from the canal is very visible now. A couple of pumps are still in situ, pumping water out from the drain into the River Don.

Here you can see the progress that has been made on the eastern dam. It looks like they are loading more sections of piling onto the pontoon.

I wonder how long it will be before they can’t get the pontoon to the loading area anymore? I doubt they will keep the pontoon inside the cofferdam as it would just get in the way.

Here you can see the amount of water being pumped round the site. Once the cofferdam is fully in this will then feed through to Goole Docks. I wonder if the caisson gates will be opened then, or will they keep pumping round them into the docks keeping the gates as a precautionary measure?

The bags of aggregate by the tarpaulin are visible again, which suggests the level has dropped. Apparently Goole docks are busy with ships again, as I write this there are four vessels shown to be in the docks and more heading up the River Ouse (MarineTraffic).

This one shows how large an area there is within the dams. There are reports of an unmapped culvert here, so this may be why they have had to block off such a large section.

Considering they have built just about a whole dam in the last week, I’d expect that the second one will be completed early next week. Then before all the water is fully drained they will do a fish rescue. It will be interesting to see what it will all look like when it is fully drained.

Then we will see if supermarket trolleys have an ability to travel distances. The nearest shop (West Cowick Spar) is just about two miles away, then the usual culprits, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda are further at about five miles.

Thank you Mark once again.