Water & Wastewater Treatment

14 | MAY 2015 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Project focus E ssex & Suffolk Water has success- fully completed its major project to increase the size of Abberton Reservoir, work that will help secure water resources in Essex for genera- tions to come. The £140M project has swelled the maximum capacity of Abberton – south of Colchester - from 26 billion litres to 41 billion, a 58% increase. With the water level raised by 3.2m, the reservoir is now around 17 metres in depth at its deepest point. The programme of work included an expansion of the Ely-Ouse transfer scheme, which takes water from the River Ouse in Norfolk, via the River Stour and two new pipeline sections, to Abberton. It also involved painstak- ing environmental work to preserve the environment, since the reservoir enjoys triple status as a Special Protec- tion Area (SPA), a Site of Special Sci- entific Interest (SSSI), and a protected 'Ramsar' wetland site because of its bird life. The scheme was conceived in the 1990s because of the supply-demand deficit for water in Essex, which is the driest county in the UK. However, many alternatives were explored before the project took shape, explains Jim Jenkins, Abberton Programme Man- ● Capacity of reservoir increased by 58 per cent ● Bigger Ely-Ouse transfer scheme brings more water from Norfolk to Essex ● £140M project has been 23 years in the making ager at Essex & Suffolk Water, which is part of the Northumbrian Water Group. "We've got a steady growth in popu- lation, fuelling demand, and it was identified that we had a need for more resource in the area," says Jenkins. "We started off by doing a brainstorm- ing exercise, and from around 200 sug- gestions, produced a list of 16 schemes that were viable in one way or another. For example, one of the options we looked at was desalination by reverse osmosis, which we looked at quite seriously, but at the time it was a very expensive option." The list eventually boiled down to three options: build a brand new James Brockett EDITOR, WATER & WASTEWATER TREATMENT ● expanded water resource needed to meet supply- demand imbalance in essex ● Water transfer from Norfolk required new pipelines and pumping systems ● reservoir's special status as bird habitat required extensive environmental protection work • Drivers Water resource management Enlargement of Abberton Reservoir completed An aerial view of Abberton Reservoir. The reservoir is divided by the B1026 A map of the enlarged reservoir. Naturalist Sir David Attenborough will open the completed site in June.

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