As part of the Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services Company’s (ADSSC) major wastewater tunnel project, the service provider has contracted Mott MacDonald to the role of engineer of what has already been deemed as the “world’s largest pumping station”.
Located in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the pumping station will be over 100m deep and approximately 40m in diameter and will have an ultimate peak pumping capacity of approximately 3.3 million cubic metres per day.
Mott MacDonald will undertake the role of engineer for the contract administration and construction oversight. This will involve project, design, cost, contract and health, safety and environment management.
As part of ADSSC’s Strategic Tunnel Enhancement Programme (STEP), the focus is a deep 41km long tunnel sewer and several systems of link sewers. These will collect and transport wastewater to a main pumping station for onward treatment at the Al Wathba Independent Sewage Treatment Plants (ISPTs).
Link sewers will intercept the flows from existing gravity sewers upstream of the existing pumping stations, both on Abu Dhabi Island and the mainland. These flows will be channelled by gravity into the deep tunnel.
At the downstream end of the deep tunnel, in the AI Wathba area, an underground pumping station will be built to lift the sewage to the surface, and into newly constructed ISTPs.
The pumping station will be housed in a large deep structure at one end of the tunnel. The facility will also accommodate electrical and power generation facilities, operations and maintenance facilities, standby power fuel storage and pumping and a flow distribution facility.
Peter Hall, Mott MacDonald’s project director, said: “The UAE is the third largest consumer of water in the world after Canada and the USA. There is a daily water consumption rate of nearly 550 litres per person in a region that receives less than 1cm of rain per year. Therefore, management and reuse of wastewater is a critical component to Abu Dhabi’s long-term sustainability.”
The project is due for completion towards the middle of 2015.
###
