Mountmellick Flood Relief Scheme - Site Investigation

The proposed Flood Relief Scheme (FRS) works include the construction of 1191m of flood defence walls and 5366m of embankments. The proposed Mountmellick FRS works are in County Laois in Mountmellick town. The works are proposed along watercourses including the River Owenass, Rover Pound, Clontygar Stream and Carroon Stream, which can be accessed from the national road N80 and regional road R422, and in the surrounding areas. The NIAH dataset revealed three Sites and Monuments (SMR) features located at 75m (graveyard), 95m (Church) and 170m (Historic town) from the proposed FRS structures. Works will occur on a mix of public and private land with landowners’ permission. Access to this land is predominantly available from landowners. The Mountmellick FRS is a proposed Flood Relief scheme covering Mountmellick town to address and mitigate flood risk from the nearby rivers and streams. The purpose of the site investigation work outlined in this Contract is to establish the following; • To reduce the risk of unforeseen ground conditions that could negatively impact the design of the scheme. This will be achieved by undertaking a sequence of exploratory holes using a variety of SI techniques (including boreholes, trial pits, slit trenches, dynamic probing, window sampling, peat probing and soil infiltration testing). • To acquire ground and groundwater information in areas not covered by historical ground investigations and other published sources. •To provide an initial assessment of the hydrogeological and geo-environmental characteristics along the proposed route. •To install instrumentation necessary to capture the long-term behaviour and seasonal variations experienced at key areas across the site. •To ascertain locations of underground workings (if any).