The Impact of Contaminated Land on Buried Electric Cables

A large amount of new civil work takes place on sites that were previously occupied by some form of industrial operation.

These sites may, over the years, have become contaminated by spillages and waste products.

This can be harmful to any materials buried in the soil and to personnel working on the site during this construction phase of a new development.

This report concentrates on the effect that contaminated land will have on materials such as those used in the construction of power and telecommunications cables which have to be buried in the soil.

The safety of personnel is also looked at briefly. Much of the information also applies to other similarly buried services.

To assess the risk at a particular site it is necessary to know the types of contamination that are likely to be present. The report provides advice on: how site history can be determined; the types of contamination that are associated with specific industries; the methodology set out in the British Standard code of practice for identifying and investigating contaminated land; data on the effects that various chemicals have on the long term performance of materials used to sheath electric cables; and removing or containing the source of contamination.