Where are our buoys?
Corilla Marine have a proud history of providing marine buoys for some of the most prestigious maritime organisations in the world, including the M.o.D. Royal Navy, P.D. Ports and many others. Our navigation and mooring buoys are all over the world.
One of the many interesting uses our buoys have been put to recently is as automatic water quality monitors (AWQMs) in the river Tyne during the construction of the new Tyne Tunnel. We supply the dumb buoys to the data companies who add all the clever stuff in order to collect data from the sea and air. These are called data buoys.
The original traffic tunnel under the Tyne was built in 1967 and was designed for daily use of circa 24,000 vehicles. By the spring of 2008 it was carrying around 38,000 vehicles a day. As a result in 2008 construction began on a new Tyne Tunnel.
One of the requirements that the Environment Agency and other stake-holders in the construction of the Tunnel was that the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority (TWITA) were legally bound to ensure the protection of the environment, and particularly migrating salmon on their way to breed in the upper Tyne catchment, during the construction of the new Tyne Tunnel.
The agreement in place also required TWITA to use AWQMs to demonstrate that these standards were met.
That’s where Corilla Marine came in;
We were employed by YSI Hydrodata to provide them with a number of EM1250 buoys that were customised to be suitable for carrying the sophisticated live monitoring equipment, sensors and real-time, web-enabled alarm systems that would ensure the environmental targets the project was aiming for were met.
We provided EM1250 buoys for the project due to the challenging conditions that can be experienced as a result of the Tyne’s proximity to the North Sea. YSI’s Andy Burton said, “Monitoring water quality in a tidal estuary close to the North Sea in all weathers has been a significant challenge and the reliability of our data is a testament to the ruggedness of the instruments.” Without our EM1250 buoys – over 70 of which had previously been situated in PD Teesport in the North East, hence we knew they would work in harsh conditions of the North Sea – this undertaking would have been significantly less likely to succeed.
One of the Environment Agency’s water quality planners, Roger Inverarity said of the project, “Having access to continuous live water quality data via a website gave all stakeholders information about what was happening in the river, day or night. It enabled the dredger to respond to any deterioration and us, the regulator, to check that they were doing so.”
The AWQMs carried by our buoys only raised alarms on a small number of occasions. At these times the high-tech monitoring system carried by the buoys sent automated alarms to the dredger allowing the dredging to be immediately stopped until water quality had returned to an acceptable level.
If you have any enquiries about how our buoys can be used in similar projects, contact us on 01656 870 415 today.At Corilla we’re pleased to have been involved in the Tyne Tunnel project. The use, and success, of our marine buoys in a scheme designed to protect the environment is something we’re extremely proud of.