Drilling Services
DRILLING
SAFETY
Envirotech is committed to completing all of it’s drilling projects in a safe manner, without incidents, while at the same time maintaining efficiency in the field. In order to be both safe and efficient, we have identified the three most common safety incidents (an incident being defined as an accident that has caused an injury or damages to the site or equipment), and have made the following operational commitments to mitigate them.
Striking an Underground Utility
Hitting underground utilities is the most common Health and Safety incident that occurs in the field. While most utility strikes do not result in injury, at the very least they slow the project down and cost money to repair. In order to mitigate utility strikes we have committed to both performing a utility locate on every job site, and soft digging every monitor well and soil boring location to 5 feet bgs at every boring location.
Performing a utility one call for the area that we are working in is the first way that we mitigate utility strikes. That is why our project managers are always asking for site maps with our proposed drilling locations illustrated on them. So the more information that you can give us on the front end, the better our locate tickets will be.
Additionally, we also hand clear all boring locations to 5 feet bgs prior to drilling. For Phase II site assessments done with a direct push rig, the hand auger will give you a soft dig hole that is 125% larger than the drilling tooling. So it is impossible to miss a utility when hand clearing using that method for direct push project.
Accidents involving vehicles on-site are mitigated by the enforcement of company specific SOPs. These SOPs are enforced by frequent site audits by our field superintendents. They are committed to auditing a drilling crew once per week to ensure compliance with our safety policies.
| Safety Incident | Method to Mitigate Incident | Investment Made to Facilitate Incident Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Striking Underground Utilities while Drilling | Perform 1-Call on Every Site | Envirotech has hired and trained staff to get meaningful 1-calls in place on every project. |
| Soft Dig All Locations to 5′ bgs Prior to Drilling | Envirotech bought 2 hydro-excavators, will hydro-excavate your monitor well. | |
| Envirotech will hand auger all direct push locations to 5 feet bgs for no additional cost to your project. | ||
| Vehicular Accidents or Damages Caused by Equipment Collisions | Perform Internal Site Safety and Quality Audits to ensure compliance with safe work practices. | Hire of a drilling superintendent that audits each crew at least once per week. |
| Accidents Resulting from Use of Outdated Equipment, or Improperly Maintained Equipment | Keep drilling fleet new and updated. | We have an average direct push rig age of 5.8 years as of January 2022. We are committed to replacing direct push rigs every 15 years and hollow stem auger rigs every 25 years in an effort to balance value and safety. |
| Keep Equipment well maintained. | Implementation of a corporate-level maintenance plan, including hydraulic hose inspections/replacement by a third party every 6 months. |
