National Story - WATER - EVERYWHERE

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 20th Year

Issue

Issue No.

6

Date Released

Feb 1967

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1National Story - WATER - EVERYWHERE
2. 2County Durham - WARM PARTNERS
3. 3Scotland - GROUP THERAPY
4. 4Lancashire & Denbigshire - THE NORTH WEST

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 4

Summary

BFI synopsis: The ever presence of water in a mine and its disposal.
NCB Commentary - Even in times of drought on the surface, there’s always water present in a mine. It’s not always as evident as in this South Wales pit, but invariably arrangements have to be made to dispose of it - or to put it to good use in mining operations.
Here’s a challenge to the mining engineer, for in a country where water is often paradoxically in short supply, it is a valuable natural asset.
Here at Manton Colliery in Yorkshire they’ve got some of the answers. Thousands of gallons a day flow from the strata, and must be disposed of for the mine to keep working.
Soon, Manton will have the industry’s largest water disposal scheme, and will deliver 2 million tons of water a year to the North Derbyshire Water Board.
The Yorkshire coalfield has 100 collieries to keep free of water. There are 16 pumping stations between Huddersfield and Rotherham, disposing of a ton and a half of water for every ton of coal mined.
It goes to industry, sports grounds, homes - and even farms.
Disused mines have to be controlled too, to avoid interfering with neighbouring pits.
New Delaval, in County Durham, closed 11 years ago.
Today there’s an automatic pumping and recording system at the old mine.
The pumps switch on automatically according to the level of the water.
And the automatic system speaks for itself. 37 messages are pre-recorded on a disc to report the state of affairs. A phone call from another Colliery triggers off the system to repeat the appropriate situation report.
Bates Colliery, one of Durham’s big ‘uns, relies on the automatic system at Delaval to keep its own productive seams water free and working.

Keywords

Mining

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963

Credits:

Sponsor

National Coal Board

Production Co.

National Coal Board Film Unit