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| July 2002 |
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Plant upgrade important part of improving outfall water quality
Treatment of sewage is a large, complex and expensive operation that is
vital to the health and welfare of Christchurch. Since 1996 planning and building work has been under way to make sure
the City Council’s wastewater treatment plant, ponds and wetlands system
in east Christchurch will be able to treat the growing city’s output until
about 2026. Future decisions about where and how the treated water
should be discharged do not effect the Council’s plans for expanding and
upgrading the plant. The expansion is needed to meet the demands of a growing city. Estimates
are that, by 2026, Christchurch could be home to as many as 420,000
people. Figures from the last Census show the city now has about 316,000. The plant upgrade project also is designed to ensure the water being
discharged after treatment is as clean as possible and that new ways of
improving that quality can be built in as they become available. Another
underlying idea is to make sure that potentially useful by-products are able
to be harvested from the plant and used again. The improvements include finer screening at the start to better remove
solid material, a new method which makes it easier to remove material
dissolved in the water, new sedimentation tanks and systems to cut down
on smells and changing the oxidation ponds to kill more bacteria. The project’s estimated total cost is $33.7 million.The work is being done
in stages and the current planning is to have the upgrade finished by 2006. What is wastewater? Wastewater is a combination of household wastes from the kitchen,
toilet, shower and washing machine and some industrial wastes – including
from manufacturing, food-processing, catering, agriculture, hotels and other
large institutions. Some stormwater also gets into the wastewater system.
Wastewater is a mix of organic (from living things) and inorganic
material. About 136,000 homes are connected to a huge network of pipes
and pumping stations which take their wastewater to the treatment plant. THE WASTEWATER OPERATION More information about Christchurch’s wastewater system and the
treatment plant is available through the Council’s website, at
www.ccc.govt.nz/Wastewater/ |
