The Secretary of State for the Environment wants IKEA to use the waste water from the new Olhão – Faro sewage treatment works for heating and cooling systems and for irrigation of the store’s surrounding green spaces.
None of this is in the plan but Carlos Manuel Martins has used such a system at the treatment plant at Freilas where he was the manager and said the system is useable in the Algarve.
The Secretary of State for the Environment was offering the benefit of his experience in the heady world of sewage treatment at today’s launch of the building of the new plant near Olhão.
Martins, a former Chairman of Águas do Algarve, said the new plant will cater for the effluent produced by 113,200 inhabitants of the municipalities of Faro, Olhão and São Brás de Alportel at a cost of €22 million.
Laying the first brick at the new treatment plant, the Secretary of State added that it will allow variable treatment rates to cope with summertime increases in the local population and will produce cleaner waste water that at the end of the cycle will be discharged into the Ria Formosa.
António Pina, the Olhão mayor said this is a "day of great satisfaction for everyone, especially for lovers of the Ria Formosa."
The mayor of Faro council did not turn up.
The technology indeed is cutting edge as a Nereda plant is to be built by Acciona Agua which will install an advanced biological treatment process, filtering and disinfection with a flow rate of 28,149m³ per day, with a peak of 3,942 m³ per hour.
The new plant is located to the west of Olhão and has a completion period of 965 days, including 365 days dedicated to start-up.
The plant will be the first one in which Acciona Agua will use Nereda® technology, an innovative method of treating wastewater to reduce in the plant’s carbon footprint by 50% and to achieve an saving of between 20% and 30% in the energy consumed in the water treatment process.
The plant also has solar panels that, with an installed capacity of 50 kW, will produce energy for use by auxiliary services.
Modern, flexible, sewage treatment plants are needed at several sites across the region but the Olhão – Faro and Portimão treatment facilities now under construction are a good start.
The lack of planning to use the wastewater for agricultural irrigation is an opportunity missed and the Secretary of State’s thoughts that IKEA could use the treated water for watering its green areas and for heating and cooling systems should have been part of the original planning.
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This is but one of the aspects of the Minister's musings that had not ben planned for...