Thames Water Utilities Ltd
Thames Water starts work this spring on a £40million upgrade at Long Reach Sewage Works in Dartford, as part of a major scheme to help improve water quality in the River Thames.
Additional treatment processes will be provided at the works in Kent, to improve the quality of treated effluent returned to the River Thames and to meet new Environment Agency standards.
The improvements will also enable the plant to generate more renewable energy from the sewage treatment process – enough to power over half the site.
Steve Shine, Thames Water's Chief Operating Officer, said:
“These improvements will help clean up the River Thames for all those who use and enjoy it, as well as improving conditions for fish by increasing oxygen levels.
“We will reduce odour at Long Reach by installing new technology and covering up the smelliest parts of the plant. We’ll also recycle excavated soil to create a new landscape, and plant trees to help screen the site.
"This upgrade is part of a £675million programme to modernise and extend London's five major sewage treatment works to increase the amount of sewage each site can treat, and improve the standards to which we treat it.”
Major upgrades will take place at Mogden in Isleworth, Crossness and Beckton in east London and Riverside sewage works in Havering, Essex. The work is part of Thames Water's wider London Tideway Improvements programme, which includes the £600million Lee Tunnel project and the proposed Thames Tunnel.
Graham Harris, Managing Director of Dartford Council, said:
"We are delighted that Thames Water is upgrading the Long Reach Sewage Works and fully support measures to reduce odour, to increase the use of renewable energy and to improve water quality."
The Long Reach project is due for completion in 2012, and the improvements will enable the site to deal increased sewage resulting from population growth until 2021.
Thames Water has awarded the contract for the works to Galliford Try, a joint venture with Biwater and Mott MacDonald.
Notes to Editor
1. For more information please contact the Thames Water Press Office on 0118 373 8920.
2. In April 2010, Thames Water plans to start work on the £600million Lee Tunnel project, the first of the two tunnels, which will collectively capture in 39 million tonnes of sewer overflows to the River Thames each year. The four-mile tunnel will be as much as 75 metres deep, running from east London’s Abbey Mills Pumping Station to Beckton Sewage Treatment Works. The 7.2 metre diameter tunnel – the width of three London buses - will capture sewage mixed with rainwater that would otherwise overflow into the River Lee at Abbey Mills following heavy rain.
3. The proposed Thames Tunnel, the bigger and more complex of the two tunnels, will run 20 miles from west London to Beckton Sewage Works, helping to prevent discharges from 34 Victorian overflow points along the River Thames. A planning application is expected to be submitted in 2011, with the tunnel being completed in 2020.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
