Work underway on £7m sewage plant

Work underway on £7m sewage plant

11 January 2012

WORK on a £7m upgrade and extension of Newcastle’s sewage treatment plant is underway.

Contractors moved on site on Monday to begin preparatory work in advance of the main contract starting which is expected to take 18 months to complete.

The significant capital investment at the 21 year-old plant is in addition to £6m Northern Ireland Water has already spent in Newcastle over the past three years upgrading the sewerage network and closing a number of drains where sewage and storm water mix together.

The multi-million pound upgrade to overhaul the existing plant will be carried out by Saintfield-based marine civil engineering contractors Dawson-Wam and Ovivo, which specialise in wastewater treatment solutions.

Hundreds of tonnes of stones will be dumped in the sea where the extension to the existing treatment plant will be built and huge metal piles driven into the ground to create a box-like structure from which sea water will be pumped out to allow work on the extension to get underway.

The upgrade and extension will ensure the Newcastle plant meets future stringent discharge standards with the work over the next 18 months allowing the treatment plant to handle 15,000 cubic metres of wastewater every day.

A 635 cubic metre tank to hold storm water forms part of the construction project at the harbour and a number of storm drains where rain water and raw sewage mix — resulting in major problems in a number of locations — have been closed.

Northern Ireland Water says while the existing plant at the harbour has met discharge standards for the past five years, it’s not capable of producing the standard of final effluent needed to comply with the future standards that will be imposed by the Environment Agency.

NI Water has also confirmed that a series of measures are to be implemented to minimise noise disruption during construction work.

Contractors will also be fitting the latest energy efficient equipment, including an ultraviolet light disinfection system which will be used before discharge.