WET News

4 WET NEWS MAY 2016 News+ Good monthT- Bad month For the Welsh coast, where Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water's Capital Delivery Alliance, made up of Mott MacDonald Bentley and joint ventures between Morgan Sindall/Arup and Skanska/Arcadis, is undertaking the largest programme of scientific coastal investigation work ever undertaken in Wales. For United Utilities as the Princess Royal cuts the ribbon to open the £200M extension to Liverpool WwTW. For Scottish Water, which was criticised by American legal clerk and environmental activist Erin Brockovich over its plan to chloraminate the water supply to customers in the Spey Valley. Ambitious SuDS project to protect London from flooding • Thames Water joins forces with local authorities, GLA and developers for Nine Elms project 'to do something different with surface water'. A major sustainable drain- age scheme is set to be constructed on London's South Bank as part of efforts to protect the capital from flooding. The Nine Elms project is the result of an innovative partnership between Thames Water and the Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership, which includes Wandsworth Council, Lambeth Council, the GLA and local developers. It will result in rainfall landing on an area equivalent to 20 football pitches draining into the Thames instead of entering the local combined sewer. Thames Water sustainability director Richard Aylard said: "It is about putting surface water back where it belongs – in the river. By keeping the rain out of our combined sewers we are removing unnecessary pressure on our network, as London's population continues to grow and the climate changes. "Development and regeneration across London is a major opportunity to do something different with surface water – to take it out of sewers and create additional capacity for new homes and businesses, and allow areas like Nine Elms on the South Bank to thrive. Initiatives like this will also help to prolong the life of the Thames Tideway Tunnel." Leader of Wandsworth Council and co-chair of the Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership, Ravi Govindia, said: "This is the city's most ambitious sustainable drainage network and a real step forward for London's sustainable infrastructure. The project is another major achievement for this regeneration partnership as it transforms an old industrial part of the riverside into a modern city centre district. "In Nine Elms everything from basic utilities and transport infrastructure, to education and health services, are being overhauled and upgraded in a coordinated programme. We are delivering thousands of affordable homes and thousands of new jobs without any taxpayer funding." Nine Elms on the South Bank is undergoing a major regeneration programme and is now coming to life as a vibrant new central London quarter. The area's key attractions will include a revived Battersea Power Station, the new US and Dutch embassies, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Nine Elms Park and a stretch of Thames Riverside Walk lined with cafes, bars, shops and galleries. Two new tube stations are being built, alongside schools, around 4,000 affordable homes, health centres, a high speed data network, a second riverbus pier and a cycling and pedestrian network. The already overstretched sewerage network would not be able to cope with the additional demands arising from the development, so Thames Water, working with the Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership, developed the integrated water management strategy, which seeks to remove as much rainwater as possible, through the creation of a new surface water network. The £14M scheme is unique not only because of its scale, but also because of the interaction with developers, whose own schemes include a variety of features to capture, slow and reuse rainwater through measures such as green roofs, swales and streets incorporating rainwater gardens. These design features will allow water to evaporate back into the atmosphere, irrigate plants and generally slow and reduce the volume of rainwater before it enters the new surface water network. The project will capture and redirect surface water run-off from nine development sites across the Nine Elms on the South Bank, with scope to extend it in future. Surplus surface water that is collected a˜er heavy rainfall will be li˜ed into the Thames via an upgrade to a pumping station on Ponton Road. Last year Thames Water launched a £20M campaign to find new ways to drain 20 hectares of hard impermeable surfaces – an area equivalent to 30 football pitches. Over the next five years, the company's Twenty Heavy Duty Chopper Pumps, Mixers and Valves For the Toughest of Applications • Heavy duty chopper pumps with the ability to handle HIGHER SOLIDS CONCENTRATES than standard pumps. • A range of SUBMERSIBLE HORIZONTAL MIXERS designed and constructed to guarantee DURABILITY and EFFICIENCY even in the most extreme utilisation conditions. • A vast selection of KNIFE GATE VALVES for PIPELINE ISOLATION and designed for medias with SUSPENDED SOLIDS such as WASTEWATER and SLUDGE. www.ttpumps.com Tel: +44(0)1630 647200 Choppers, Mixers and Valves.indd 1 19/04/2016 09:59:37 NEEd To kNoW The Nine Elms scheme is costing £14M The project will result in rainfall landing on an area equivalent to 20 football pitches Thames Water launched a £20M campaign last year to find new ways of draining 20 hectares of hard impermeable surfaces Measures for the Nine Elms scheme include green roofs, swales and streets incorporating rainwater gardens CoNTRACT WINS • Irish Water has awarded a significant new contract to FLI Water to carry out upgrades on three wastewater treatment works in County Wicklow, Ireland. Work has already started for the €500,000 project, which is expected to last four months. • Northern Ireland Water has awarded contracts for leak detection services and leakage management services worth more than £25M in total. RPS Environmental Management, Larsen Water Management, Crowder & Co, WRc, and E McMullan are the successful bidders. • Ultraviolet disinfection specialist atg UV Technology has been awarded a contract by Trant Engineering on behalf of Portsmouth Water to install UV reactors at the Eastergate and Westergate water treatment works. The contract covers supply and installation of UV units for Cryptosporidium inactivation. Wessex Water trials catchment-wide permits to cut costs Need to reduce phosphorus levels from sewage treatment works to meet WFD prompts to trial permit scheme. W essex Water has signed an agreement with the Environment Agency (EA) to trial an industry-first catchment-wide permitting scheme in the West Country, with the hope of improving the environment at a lower overall cost. The Bristol Avon catchment permitting trial will begin in earnest from January 2017 and will run for four years. Wessex said the move was prompted by the need to reduce levels of phosphorus being discharged from its sewage works into the River Avon, to meet the requirements of the Water Framework Directive. A traditional individual site permitting approach would have meant expensive capital investment at all 24 sewage works where reduced phosphorus levels are required. But by developing a catchment-wide permit with the EA, Wessex Water said it will minimise the risk of the failing to meet the new tighter discharge standards, and therefore better placed to meet the environmental objectives in the Bristol Avon with less upfront investment. Wessex Water director of regulation and customer services Andy Pymer said: "This new approach helps to ensure we continue to enhance standards in the environment but at an overall lower cost to our customers. "The Bristol Avon is an important river catchment for Wessex Water where, in addition to catchment permitting, we are actively working with many partners on other major influences within the catchment to reduce the level of phosphorus in the river system as part of a wider catchment-based approach." If the trial is successful, Wessex Water plans to roll out the approach more widely in the West Country and across the rest of the UK. 4 Twenty initiative will introduce sustainable drainage systems to slow the rainwater down and ideally completely remove it from entering the sewers again. Nine Elms on the South Bank is undergoing a major regeneration programme

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