Black & Veatch Meets Challenging 45-Day Completion
Target for 4Delivery
Redhill, UK (23 July 2008) – The Ashford Consent Compliance Scheme is the
first of three projects at Southern Water’s Ashford Wastewater Treatment Works
to reach completion according to Black & Veatch, a leading engineering,
consulting and construction company.
Black & Veatch constructed and commissioned the project for client
4Delivery, a Special Purpose Vehicle set up by suppliers to Southern Water to
assist in the delivery of Southern Water’s current capital programme.
Forming a part of 4Delivery’s East Kent Sludge Framework, the Ashford
Consent Compliance Scheme is quality driven and produces effluent to a higher
standard, thereby improving the overall quality of the water in the Great Stour
River. The scheme achieved operational takeover on 4th February 2008
and overall completion within a 45-day deadline set by the client.
Commenting on the scheme, Martin Charlton, Director for Black & Veatch
Water Europe’s Southern Project Centre, said: “The East Kent Sludge Framework
is the combination of projects at Ashford, Allington and Aylesford. It is a
great achievement to obtain completion of one of the larger and key schemes,
Ashford Consent Compliance. This scheme has been very challenging with
aggressive timescales. Despite these challenges, the Black & Veatch team
has completed this project to the agreed timescale and developed innovative and
sustainable solutions to construction and commissioning issues.”
Geoff Joy, Southern Water’s Sludge Treatment Centre (STC) Section Leader at
Ashford, remarked, “The whole project was conducted in a very professional
manner with Black & Veatch providing continuous support and resolutions to
problems as they arose. Teamwork between Southern Water, 4D and Black &
Veatch was paramount to the successful outcome of this project with as little
interruption to the operations on site as possible.”
Greg Mullett, Project Manager for 4D, said: “The Ashford Project team won 4D
Team of The Month for November 2007 for successfully carrying out work to
achieve consent. The team worked incredibly hard to secure the performance of
the plant when the consent for ammonia had to be reduced significantly. This
was an excellent example of teamwork between Southern Water Operations,
4Delivery and Black & Veatch. Performance of the plant since takeover has
been excellent.”
***
Notes for editors:
Black & Veatch’s role in £5.8 million ($11 million) Ashford Consent
Compliance Scheme involved providing:
-
Three new Nitrifying Tertiary Filters (NTF) – each 20m diameter with a
retained height of 5.5m plastic media.
-
New six lane Deep Bed Sand Filter (DBSF) – each lane 13m long by 3m wide by
5m high, along with a dirty wash water tank and filtered effluent tank.
-
New combined NTF Feed, Re-circulation and DBSF Feed Pumping Station. The
overall dimensions were 17m by 6.5m by 6.5m deep with 5.4m below ground
level.
-
New high voltage power supply, electrical installation and control system.
The scheme required a new 450m run of 11KV cable, a new 11KV switchboard, a new
800 Kilovolt-Amps (KVA) transformer and dedicated Motor Control Centres (MCC)
for the pumping station and the DBSF.
-
New standby power supply generator and fuel storage – the generator is rated
at 630KVA with a fuel tank sufficient to allow 80 hours running time.
-
Various elements of interconnecting pipework – including 275 linear metres
of 1,050mm concrete pipes, 250 linear metres of ductile iron (DI) pipes (150 to
800mm diameter) and 150 linear metres of fabricated steel pipes (700 to 1,000mm
diameter)
The Ashford consent compliance scheme was driven by changes to consent
levels for the Ashford Wastewater Treatment Works. The critical new summer
consent levels of 20mg/l SS, 10mg/l BOD and 3mg/l NH3 were applicable from
1st October 2007, and the new Tertiary Treatment Plant had to be
ready to meet the new requirements.
The Environment Agency issued a modified consent for the Ashford Wastewater
Treatment Works in May 2004, addressing the increased DWF (Dry Weather Flow)
and sanitary determinands. The SS (Suspended Solids) remained at 20mg/l, the
BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) reduced from 15 to 10 mg/l and the NH3 (Ammonia)
reduced from 5 to 3mg/l.
The main driver for the standards set in the above discharge consent
criteria are the requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive
(UWWTD), enacted in legislation through the Urban Wastewater Treatment (England
and Wales) Regulations, 1994. Under these regulations the Ashford WwTW is
required to provide tertiary treatment with nutrient removal. The level of
treatment currently provided by the existing process plant would not meet the
requirements of the new discharge consent and as such additional treatment
capacity was provided.
About 4Delivery
4Delivery is a consortium comprising United Utilities, Costain and MWH, and
brings together a wealth of experience and knowledge from within the utility
sector.
4Delivery is carrying out a £700 million ($1.4 billion) programme of
improvement works on behalf of Southern Water across Hampshire, Kent, Sussex
and the Isle of Wight between 2005-2010.
The programme is upgrading bathing water and river water quality as well as
improving tap water supplies, in line with Environment Agency and Drinking
Water Inspectorate requirements driven by European law.
4D is responsible for the project management, design and delivery of schemes
including:
- Widespread improvements to sewage works to upgrade the quality of water
released into rivers and the sea
- Refurbishing water supply works to improve the quality of tap water
- Schemes to help safeguard water supplies
- An £80 million programme to help protect homes from flooding from
sewers
- Projects to control odours from treatment works
- Schemes to provide mains drainage to areas without public sewers
- Work to start addressing Government plans for new house building in the
South-East.
4Delivery augmented its delivery team by formulating packages of work and
letting them to key subcontractors. These are referred to as Tier 1
contractors, where Tier 1 subcontractors replace the Costain construction team
and run the projects using their own management systems. Tier 2 subcontractors
work directly for 4Delivery and are managed by the Costain construction
team.
The Tier 1 contractors work closely with the design team as responsibility
for design, excluding package plants, rests with 4Delivery.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is a leading global engineering, consulting and construction
company specializing in infrastructure development in energy, water,
telecommunications, management consulting, federal and environmental markets.
Founded in 1915, Black & Veatch develops tailored infrastructure solutions
that meet clients’ needs and provide sustainable benefits. Solutions are
provided from the broad line of service expertise available within Black &
Veatch, including conceptual and preliminary engineering services, engineering
design, procurement, construction, financial management, asset management,
program management, construction management, environmental, security design and
consulting, management consulting and infrastructure planning. With $3.2
billion in revenue, the employee-owned company has more than 100 offices
worldwide and has completed projects in more than 100 countries on six
continents.
Black & Veatch’s global water business provides innovative,
technology-based solutions to utilities, governments and industries worldwide.
Local project teams work with multinational water and wastewater treatment
process experts to address site-specific challenges through a broad range of
consulting, study, planning, design, design-build and construction management
services. The company’s Web site address is www.bv.com.
Media Contact:
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