Technology Treats Surface Water at Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre Development

VINCI Environment UK is using Siltbuster (UK) technology to treat surface water runoff created during construction at the Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre in St Dennis. 

VINCI is building an ‘energy from waste’ incinerator at the site which will provide electricity for 21,000 homes in the region. The combined heat and power facility will generate 16.6 megawatts of electricity and divert 90% of Cornwall’s residual waste away from landfill.

When preparing for the high profile, £141 million construction project, VINCI created a large lagoon to collect surface water runoff from site. Waters present in the lagoon had a Total Suspended Solids (TSS) content ranging from 350 – 500mg/l. If released it would fail to meet the discharge criteria, leading to pollution of the local water course and harming trout present in a downstream fishery.

Due to a lack of space available onsite VINCI needed to find a solution with a much smaller footprint and so turned to Siltbuster.

Within the construction sector, Siltbuster is the UK’s leading authority on water treatment and silt pollution prevention. The company has worked with the majority of the top 100 construction contractors and has helped tackle the dirty water produced by construction work on projects ranging from Birmingham New Street station, Crossrail and the Olympic Park through to the construction of Airbus’ new UK factory.

Siltbuster recognised that the solution for the VINCI site needed to be not only compact but capable of reducing the TSS levels in the discharge water to below 30mg/l, whilst maintaining a pH level of between 6-9. It also had to be supplied quickly to allow construction works to start and the runoff water to be pumped from the low level lagoon without it overflowing, which would cause pollution.

Siltbuster recommended to VINCI a two stage chemical treatment system using a Siltbuster HB50 Unit, as the water contained slow settling solids. The system was onsite and installed within 2 weeks and is continuing to be used whilst construction work is carried out. The treatment system, reduces the pH level to neutral and consistently achieves a TSS of below 15mg/l.

Richard Coulton, CEO of Siltbuster says: “This high profile, prestigious project vividly illustrates the challenge the construction industry faces. It wants to take its environmental responsibilities very seriously but also needs to avoid costly project delays.

“By having a fleet of over 250 highly space efficient treatment systems available for hire, plus a team of water treatment experts to advise the construction sector, we can respond to this kind of urgent requirement incredibly fast.”