Siltbuster has provided the Wessex Water Engineering and Construction delivery team at Porlock WRC with a modular treatment solution, to be used during the upgrade of the site’s existing MBR plant, as part of the AMP6 capital programme.
The solution has not only enabled compliance to be maintained whilst the existing MBRs are upgraded but it is also configured in such a way that Wessex Water will be able to redeploy it elsewhere in the business once the project is completed.
Siltbuster worked closely with both Wessex Water and its capital delivery partner, NMCN, to develop the modular plant, drawing on the experience gained during previous successful projects with Wessex Water at Wellington WRC, where Siltbuster MBBR units were deployed during a filter bed refurbishment.
There were two main challenges facing Siltbuster at Porlock, which the company needed to plan for; demanding access limitations and strict timing constraints as other work needed to be completed by NMCN on the site first.
Siltbuster’s expert team, based in Monmouth, developed a solution involving the integration of 3x MBBR units (MBBR30) for biological treatment downstream of the new primary treatment system, which itself consisted of 3x HB50M lamella clarifiers. The secondary settlement used 3x Dissolved Air Flotation units (D25) to ensure the solids were within the prescribed limits for subsequent UV treatment prior to discharge. The three-stream solution ensured that a 22l/s FFT consent was achieved with sufficient capacity for maintenance during normal flow conditions.
All of the process units are highly space efficient, and were manufactured off site, so that their installation caused minimum disruption on site and could cope with the access limitations. They were also cleverly designed to be modular so they can be easily redeployed by Wessex Water, either for further capital maintenance schemes or as part of the company’s resilience planning strategies.
Rich Matthews, Managing Director at Siltbuster, commented: “This project yet again demonstrates the benefits of adopting a modular system approach and working directly with the client to understand the site specific and future requirements of the plant. The result of the effective deployment and installation of the system has allowed the whole MBR plant to be taken offline to provide programme flexibility and savings.”
Wessex Water, said: “Working closely with Siltbuster and sharing our knowledge ahead of the build allowed the temporary treatment system to be well planned and installed ahead of the capital maintenance project. It’s been a fantastic project”.