Veolia commences major upgrade to the Vartry Water Treatment Plant

Global resource management company, Veolia, is now working in partnership with Irish Water to develop and operate a new 75 million litres per day water treatment plant at Vartry, Co Wicklow. Designed to meet the growing and future needs of the population of Dublin the new plant will secure the existing supply and forms part of Irish Water’s €200 million investment plan in the Vartry Water Supply Scheme.

The Vartry Water Supply Scheme project will supply safe and sustainable drinking water to around 200,000 people in the Greater Dublin region. Under the contract Veolia will be responsible for the design, construction, commissioning and testing and interim operation of new water treatment buildings including treatment units, sludge management facilities, wash-water settlement tanks, a standby generator and reservoir upgrades. The works will take around 24 months to complete and will be followed by an interim operation and maintenance contract delivered by the local Veolia teams.

The new plant will provide a treatment capacity of 4,200m3 per hour for raw water, and the treated water output of 4,000m3 per hour will secure the existing supply and ensure compliance with the quality standards in the EU Drinking Water Directive and the national Drinking Water Regulations. The water treatment process has a number of Veolia’s innovative technologies including the Spidflow which is ideal for the treatment of reservoir water containing low density particles and algae.

By focusing on securing the existing supply no additional water will be abstracted from the Vartry reservoirs or catchment area, and this will protect the ecology of the River Vartry downstream from the site as all process water will be recycled within the plant.  The flow regime of the River Vartry will benefit from guaranteed flows of 5 million litres per day at all times, even during periods of drought, and these freshwater flows will come directly from the existing Vartry reservoir.

Commenting on this latest contract with Irish Water Joe Higgins, Director at Veolia Ireland said “This strategic project shows how we are optimising precious natural resources and delivering greater sustainability for Irish Water as we work together meet the growing needs in Ireland. Our global water experience will ensure that we can deliver this important local infrastructure, maintain the capacity for economic growth, and build resilience into our water systems for the future.”

The contract follows the successful water treatment upgrades delivered to Irish Water at the Ballymore Eustace, Kingscourt and Portarlington facilities. In 2017, the Veolia group supplied 96 million people with drinking water and 62 million people with wastewater services.