Royal opening of £200M wastewater treatment works project

HRH Princess Anne officially opens £200M wastewater treatment works (WwTW) project to which Costain was a major contributor.

Princess Annie visited Liverpool to officially open a £200M wastewater treatment works project, and met members from the Galliford Costain Atkin consortium that had built the Liverpool Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR).

The reactor has a treatment requirement of being able to handle 4700 litres of waste per second.

Work began on the new Liverpool WwTW for client United Utilities in 2010, and it became operational last September. It passed its process trials in January, serving some 650,000 residents.

The plant required 60,000m³ of concrete and 9,500 tonnes of steel.

Senior Project Manager Manjit Gill said: “Princess Anne really engaged with us. She was very knowledgeable about water management, and spoke about the importance of educating people to appreciate the process of clean and wastewater treatment.

“She asked us about our roles, and where we were from, before discussing how we maintained the existing plant during the construction process.”

The biggest problem for the GCA team was the tight footprint. To manage this, they selected SBR technology which is combined activated sludge and final settlement process, allowing them to build a two-storey plant with 16 basins within the dock walls. Each basin is 40m by 50m, with a water depth of 6.5m.

The plant is an extension to Sansdon Dock wastewater plant, which the princess also opened in 1991. The Sandon Dock plant deals with the inlet screening and primary treatment, where heavier waste drops out.

This SBR process aerates the wastewater providing an environment that encourages bacteria to digest the waste content. Fine solids sink to the bottom of the tank during a settlement phase allowing the clean water at the top of the tank to be discharged to the river.

River Mersey, which was once known as the dirtiest river in Europe, has been transformed, after billions of pounds has been spent renewing the city’s sewer network.

Work on WwTW and other facilities by United Utilities and North West Water, has resulted in life returning to the river. There has also been improved quality of water, which has encouraged the regeneration of near-by land.

 

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