King's Lynn Consortium of Internal Drainage Boards provides a range of flood and conservation protection works throughout Norfolk. These works are undertaken in the main by the Consortium's own staff, but where required, the Consortium will contract external consultants or labour.

The Consortium has a full time Engineer who's prime role is to ensure that the Consortium's maintained watercourses (drains), are capable of carrying sufficient volumes of water freely around our hydrological network. This is done via a set of Standard Maintenance Operations (SMO's) which define our annual maintenance programmes.

Hydrological Network: The Consortium's maintained network consists of over 800Km of watercourses grouped into areas known as hydrological catchments. In total we have 146 catchments: 44 of which have pumping stations sited to pump excess water either around the network, or out to sea. In these catchments, the level of the water in our network is under our control. In the other 105 catchments, water flow is by gravity and the level depends on the amount of rainfall.

In recent years, rather than just removing excess water, we have used the pumps to assist in conservation matters by pumping water in the summer months to areas that were 'shallow' to help sustain wildlife and biodiversity. Another use of the pumps, previously undreamt of, is controlled use to disperse saline build up in the Broads area, which if left to accumulate, can kill animals when they drink the water.

The Consortium operates a long term policy of regular pump servicing / replacement to ensure all pumps can operate at full efficiency, for both water pumping capacity and minimal operational cost, at all times over their life span which is typically; 20-25 years.

Standard Maintenance Operations: The Consortium's Engineer operates a year round programme of works to maintain the water carrying capacity of the network. Maintenance of the watercourses is critical and varied, but typically covers removing overgrowth from the banks (sides) and bottom (bed), of a watercourse. To undertake these essential works entry onto owners adjacent land is required, which is allowed for in the Land Drainage Act, subject to legal notices being sent out to each owner giving a minimum of seven(7) days prior notice. To efficiently control this hitherto labour intensive administration task, the Consortium have invested in new technology which now produces individual notices, for each separate land owner, in seconds.

Water Level Monitoring: The Consortium has invested in a modern radio telemetry system which constantly monitors the water conditions at each of our 44 pumping stations across Norfolk. One example of this is: When water rises to a pre-determined level, pumps are automatically switched on to disperse the excess water until it has dropped back down to a pre-determined safe level. This action is seen instantly on the telemetry computer systems at our Head Office in King's Lynn.

New Pump Installation Two new Pumps being installed at Doles Pumping Station in 1993 supplied by the Bedford Pump Company.

Water Quality Monitoring: Another current example of the use of radio telemetry is: The Consortium uses special probes placed in the water to monitor saline (salt) levels in the Norfolk Broads. The saline density readings are relayed by the telemetry radio signal from the Norfolk Broads to King's Lynn every 30 minutes by the system. The Consortium's 'Management Information System' then automatically collects the readings in readiness for the Consortium's Conservation Officer to check. If the density readings rise too high, the Conservation Officer asks the Engineer to switch the pumps on, again via telemetry from King's Lynn, to assist in dispersing the salt.