THAMES WATER ANNOUNCES AMENDED SEWAGE DISPOSAL SCHEME
Radical deesign changes to Thames Water’s proposed Teddington Direct River Abstraction (TDRA) drought resilience scheme have been published today following consultation feedback.
Thames Water has announced today that it will make further changes to its drought resilience project Teddington Direct River Abstraction (TDRA)
This follows a non-statutory public consultation from 17 October to 11 December 2023, to which over 2,312 people responded.
As a result of that process, Thames Water has today set out a solution that eliminates the requirement to continually discharge treated water upstream of Teddington Weir.
Instead it will discharge the maintenance flow, which keeps the water recycling process in good working order, at Isleworth, using existing infrastructure.
As a result of this change, treated water would only be discharged upstream of Teddington Weir when the TDRA project is in operation – on average, once every two years.
Instead of pipejacking it will use tunnel boring, which “significantly reduces visual impacts”, with four ventilation shafts and construction compounds removed from the project design.
The change also minimises the number of traffic movements that would have been associated with the original shaft and associated compound sites.
TDRA proposals detailed
TDRA is designed to safeguard the drinking water supply to millions of households and businesses across London.
Thames Water forecasts a shortfall of 1bnl of water per day by 2050 and it expects to be supplying an additional 2M customers in London by that time, up from 8M to 10M.
Thames Water said TDRA would only be used during periods of drought to protect drinking water supplies.
The scheme will see water abstracted from the River Thames, upstream of Teddington Weir, transferred along a new connecting pipeline to an existing underground tunnel. It will then join the Lee Valley reservoirs in East London, ready to become drinking water.
“Highly treated” recycled water, which has gone through an additional cleaning stage known as ‘tertiary treatment’ would then be transferred from Mogden sewage treatment works and released into the River Thames at a new discharge location upstream of Teddington Weir.
This would replenish the river and compensate for water taken to help protect the environment and local wildlife.
If approved, the project could provide up to 75M litres of water each day. Thames Water said this would avoid an impact on London of severe drought calculated at up to £500M a day.
Thames Water head of engagement, land and consents Leonie Dubois said: “We take feedback from communities extremely seriously and are focused on ensuring our design proposals deliver improvements every step of the way.
“We have a long way to go before we reach final design stage, and there will be further opportunities for people to have their say and help shape our proposals. I hope local communities feel reassured that we are listening and acting on their feedback. Minimising impacts and disruption where we can, while protecting future water resources, is our absolute priority.”
Drought resilience in London
Government policy requires that Thames Water improve its resilience to extreme drought events to 1 in 200 years on average in the 2030s, and 1 in 500 years on average by 2040.
Thames Water said a severe drought would have extensive economic, social and environmental impacts on London.
It said it has “robust plans in place to reduce water leakage,” and the Government has pledged to support water companies to encourage customers to use less water.
However, it added, “the fact remains, these two initiatives are not enough. We must look at new ways to use water more wisely. Abstraction, supported by water recycling, is a viable solution to the challenge we face.
“Water recycling is widely used in other water-stressed countries, and we must learn from this as we strive to protect and enhance our existing supplies.”
Community information events
Thames Water will host four community information events to share consultation feedback and revised proposals. The events will be held on the following dates, and those interested in attending are encouraged to register their attendance in advance:
- Tuesday 1 October 2024, 2pm – 7pm, Isleworth Public Hall
- Saturday 5 October 2024, 10am – 4pm, St Richards Church, Ham
- Wednesday 9 October 2024, 2pm – 8pm, Doubletree by Hilton, Kingston on Thames
- Monday 14 October 2024, 2pm– 8pm, York House, Twickenham
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