Wastewater treatment and services expert Jacopa has installed new rotating biological contactors (RBCs) and other equipment to ensure the village of Gulladuff, Northern Ireland, enjoys “excellent wastewater treatment”, as the firm puts it.
Gulladuff is 5km east of the town of Maghera in County L’Derry. The treatment works lies to the north of the village, and treats flows from a mixture of combined and separate sewerage networks.
The existing treatment plant, built in the 1970s, was outdated and failing to meet its consent to discharge, so Northern Ireland Water issued a tender to replace it with a modern, efficient solution.
The £600,000 Jacopa contract included MEICA elements of a new inlet works, inlet and bypass bar screens, two settlement tanks, two RBCs, two final settlement tanks, a final effluent pumping station and associated equipment. The plant is able to fully treat 11.68 litres/sec of wastewater for a design PE of 889.
During construction, Jacopa diverted existing incoming flows through temporary SAF units to ensure the plant was able to discharge a high quality of effluent while the new assets were constructed.
Flows from the new plant are pumped to the existing outfall at the wastewater treatment works in the nearby village of Knockcloghrim, and from there by gravity to the Moyola river. Discharges have to meet a stringent Northern Ireland Environment Agency consent of 5:5:3 (BOD:SS:NH3). The two-year contract was successfully completed earlier this year.
Jacopa Project Manager Declan McGreevy said: “This type of project is ideally suited to our expertise in providing high quality temporary solutions while installing robust, cost effective permanent assets that can ensure treatment works are able to meet increasingly strict consents.”
