Emaar, The Economic City (Emaar.E.C), a Dubai-based company developing King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, signed an agreement with SETE Energy Saudia for Industrial Projects Ltd. fto build a desalination plant on an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis. The 70,000 m3/day seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant will meet the needs of the first phase of KAEC, the single largest private sector-led development in the region.
“To ensure a city of this size with various zones operates efficiently, it is imperative for KAEC to have a strong infrastructure,” said Dr. Abdulraouf Mannaa, Emaar managing director. “Water supply is an important infrastructural component and to ensure efficient access, we have joined with SETE Energy Saudia, a company that has a proven track record in undertaking water desalination operations.”
Emaar also is in talks with SETE Energy to build a 30,000 m3/day membrane bioreactor (MBR) plant for the treatment of sewage water at KAEC. The largest of its kind in the Kingdom, treated water will be for landscaping and golf course irrigation. And Emaar chose Huta Group to build 3.5km of water canals at KAEC for $67 million.
SIWI presses at World Water Week for more anti-water scarcity measures
To meet challenges of global water scarcity, the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) - organizer of World Water Week, held Aug. 12-18 - issued a call for governments around the world to better manage how they use existing water resources, taking necessary and often painful measures to decrease losses in water delivery infrastructure and irrigation, cutting subsidies to agriculture, and adopting realistic water-pricing measures - before attempting to boost water supplies.
The Stockholm Junior Water Prize, sponsored by ITT Corp., was presented to three Mexican students from the Cultural Institute of Paideia in Toluca, Mexico, for the project: “Elimination of Pb(II) From Water Via BIO-Adsorption Using Eggshell”. For its project, “The Biochemical Detoxification of Heavy Metals and its Application to the Water-Soil Environment in the Agricultural Wetlands of the Pearl River Delta, China”, the Chinese team received an honourable mention.
The USA was represented by an Arizona student whose project focused on: “Toxicity and Bioaccumulation of Nanomaterials in Aquatic Species”.
Awards also went to PUB Singapore, which won the 2007 Stockholm Industry Water Award for its efforts to treat and reuse reclaimed water, branded NEWater in Singapore, often from industrial sources - and Stanford University Prof. Perry McCarty, the 2007 Stockholm Water Prize laureate and researcher in environmental biotechnology. Lastly, a joint venture between the Borealis Group and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Borealis and Borouge, joined 21 other organizations as Stockholm Water Prize co-sponsors, contributing to promotion and reward of leadership and best practices in water and sanitation.
SUEZ exploring wastewater recycling
Through subsidiary Degrémont, SUEZ Environment has developed the largest recycling plant for wastewater treatment in Europe for the city of Milan. The plant went on line in 2005 with enough capacity to serve the equivalent of over a million inhabitants (345,000 m3/day), and can recycle treated, disinfected wastewater to irrigate over 22,000 hectares of fruit and vegetable farms with high added value.
Degrémont and Lyonnaise des Eaux, another Environment subsidiary, also have set up a test project to reuse wastewater in France at the Grau du Roi WWTP in the Camargue. The water recycled by the station will be used to irrigate green spaces in Port Camargue. The facility was o be conducting tests on two technologies - ultrafiltration (UF) and ultraviolet (UV) disinfection - between now and mid-August.
Morgan Est moves forward on UK projects
Leading UK infrastructure services firm Morgan Est - one of Yorkshire Water’s six Large Scheme Framework contractors designing, building and commissioning £300 million in water and wastewater quality improvements - has a £39 million contract to upgrade Esholt’s sewage treatment works in Bradford and parts of North Leeds. Supported by engineering consultants Grontmij, it’s now carrying out Phase 2 of the improvement, which involves replacing an existing secondary treatment plant with a new activated sludge process.
In other news, the Rugby, Warwickshire, company also recently secured a framework agreement with South East Water to carry out maintenance, metering and main laying activities in East and West Sussex and west Kent worth £50 million over the next five years.
The sinking of a huge 9m diameter shaft at the Worcester Sewage Treatment Works marks progress made by Morgan Est, which is upgrading the facility as part of another £4 million project for Severn Trent Water (STW). It’s building a new pumping station at the site, which includes new screens and a screening handling plant, a washwater pumping station, a liquor returns pumping station and all associated roadways, footpaths, ducting and pipelines.
Lastly, Morgan Est won a £31.5 million contract to upgrade Frankley Water Treatment Works in Frankley, Birmingham, for STW. It involves building a 3,000m2 carbon filtration plant, designed to blend 220 mega litres of water daily from Trimperley Pumping Station near Worcester with Elan Valley water during periods of high demand. The company also will handle extensive pipe work and install mechanical and electrical systems to connect this with the existing treatment facility.
Field Notes
UK: An innovative approach to managing water resources could bring social, economic and environmental benefits in developing countries - but as major new research shows, all that glitters is not gold. The research by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and its partners was presented Aug. 16 in Stockholm at World Water Week. The UK Department for International Development funded the four-year study, which focused on ‘payments for watershed services’ - a way of compensating wise use of land and water upstream that benefits water users downstream. Case studies of active and proposed payments schemes in individual watersheds are available online for 20 countries at www.watershedmarkets.org
SWITZERLAND: With production of drinking water by desalination rapidly growing, the World Health Organization recently released a draft document, “Desalination for Safe Water Supply,” giving guidance on associated health and environmental issues. It notes that over 12,000 desalination plants are in operation throughout the world producing about 40 million m3/day of water. Since desalination is applied to non-typical source waters, and often uses non-typical technologies, existing WHO Guidelines may not fully cover unique factors encountered during intake, production and distribution of desalinated water.
UK: British water companies in areas of serious water stress will be able to seek compulsory water metering as part of 25-year forward plans, announced UK Environment Minister Phil Woolas. The proposal, developed by the Water Saving Group - a Defra-led stakeholder group with water industry representatives including Water UK, adds metering to the existing raft of options for companies to ensure long term supply security. The Environment Agency reports water metering in England and Wales now stands at about 30% and is increasing by 2% a year.
UAE: Japan’s Marubeni Corp. won the right to build, own and operate the $2.8 billion Fujairah 2 power and water project in the Emirate of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The 20-year agreement was signed with Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (ADWEA) on Aug. 1. Marubeni formed a consortium with International Power plc to win the bid. The project includes construction of 2,000MW power and 130 MiGPD seawater desalination plant to be supplied by Alstom of France and Switzerland and Societe International de Dessalement of France. The plant will utilize the latest combined cycle power and hybrid water desalination technology, combining multiple effect distillation system and RO systems.
DENMARK: As of Oct. 1, 45-year-old Niels Møller Jensen will become managing director of Grundfos A/S, the Danish production company of the Grundfos Group. He will succeed Lars Aagaard, who was appointed a member of the pump manufacturer’s Group Management team Aug. 1.
UK: Veolia Water UK, a unit of Veolia Water, the water division of Veolia Environnement, will pay Thames Water £78 million for several of its unregulated business interests - a number of which are financed by ‘Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)’. Through its thermal desalination specialist SIDEM (Veolia WST-Sidem), VE also was picked to design and build one of the world’s largest desalination plants. The €706 million plant will provide 800,000 m3/day of desalinated water to Jubail Industrial City and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia .
