Conservation & Ecology Well well well ...


What’s all this about?


Iain Howley: specialist in feasibility and design of water wells


With water now a valuable and increasingly expensive commodity, it makes perfect sense to review ways that savings may be made, especially where irrigation is a necessity. In this article, Iain Howley offers his thoughts on well drilling and why this may be the perfect solution for facilities looking to make savings


F


or all my working life (now over thirty-five years), I have been in and around water. No, I am not Duncan Goodhew, I was born into a family of well drillers and was


brainwashed into going into the family water well drilling business by my father and grandfather. I say brainwashed - it didn’t take much, because the concept of drilling for underground water fascinated me anyway even from a young age and, more importantly, the ‘boys-toys’ used to drill the wells were like something out of Thunderbirds. I loved it as a young man. Whilst the mechanics of drilling wells will


always be special to me, as you get older you get to be more intrigued with the science and the economics behind it all. Determining where groundwater can be found in differing


124 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017


parts of the country and at what depth was another real skill - something my dad had in abundance as a hydrogeologist - and learning about geology and hydrogeology was always interesting and remains so to this day. During my days as a water well driller, I


drilled plenty of wells for all sorts of uses; hospitals, breweries, mineral water production plants, remote houses and even one to flood the skid-pan at the MIRA vehicle testing site in Nuneaton. Aside from these, I also did a lot for sports facilities. We were engaged to drill wells for golf courses, hockey fields, turf growing farms and others, and it is the use of water for irrigation that has always been my passion. Firstly, I love sport and being involved with bringing something to the table that benefits a sports facility always gave me an extra


buzz. In golfing, I drilled wells for The Warwickshire, Minchinhampton Golf Club, West Essex Golf Club and Markfield (now Forest Hill) Golf Clubs. I drilled wells for Cannock and Beeston hockey clubs and a turf farm at Escrick in Yorkshire, plus many more facilities throughout the UK. After a long flirt with designing large


ground source energy systems for heating and cooling, I decided that I wanted to get back to the world of sports turf irrigation and move away from the intensive and high pressure world of designing and delivering these energy schemes for large building developers. I still do it for teams, but I don’t chase it now. For this article, I thought I would ask, and


answer, what I think would be the most important questions that a sports facility


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