\n<\/p>\n
London\u2019s desalination plant has cost more than half a billion pounds since 2010 and has run only five times, delivering 7.2bn litres of drinking water, roughly seven days of London\u2019s typical daily demand. Now Thames Water is planning a new \u00a3500m project to tackle drought in the capital.<\/p>\n
The Thames Gateway desalination plant at Beckton, built for \u00a3270m and now largely mothballed, has racked up an estimated \u00a3200m in debt interest, about \u00a345m in idle upkeep and about \u00a33m in operating costs, according to Thames Water figures. That puts the lifetime bill at about \u00a3518m, or about 7p for every litre the plant has ever produced, which is 28 times more than customers usually pay for their water.<\/p>\n
Thames Water now plans to build a new drought-resilience scheme on the Thames for an estimated cost of between \u00a3359-\u00a3535m which will be paid for by customers.<\/p>\n
The Teddington Direct River Abstraction (TDRA) scheme would remove water from the river at Teddington, pump it to the Lee Valley reservoirs in north London, and replace it with treated effluent from Mogden sewage works in west London.<\/p>\n
Map of Thames and plants<\/p>\n
A senior water industry figure was blunt: \u201cFather Thames is going to get hit because you\u2019re taking clean water out and you\u2019re putting dirtier water back in. They can\u2019t argue that. If that was not the case, why wouldn\u2019t they just take water from wastewater treatment works, put it through treatment, and use that for drinking water?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Beckton desalination plant is not a clean fix. It is energy intensive, produces brine and discharges effluent containing chlorine, chloroform and bromoform \u2013 disinfectant byproducts \u2013 into the Thames. Other waste streams are \u201cchemically neutralised\u201d before being mixed with outflows from the neighbouring Beckton sewage works and released into the river.<\/p>\n
Thames Water says the plant is \u201cnot currently available\u201d because of \u201creservoir safety related works\u201d, essential maintenance and because it is awaiting drinking water inspectorate approval for new reverse-osmosis membranes.<\/p>\n
However, according to official documents, the plant has been beset with big problems. Repeated chemical leaks have forced workers to wear protective chemical suits to enter parts of the site and Thames Water has admitted that system failures have \u201cprevented the plant from ongoing running due to health and safety issues\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The Thames Gateway water treatment works in Beckton in June 2010.<\/span> Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid\/Getty<\/p>\n Upgrades are under way, with the aim of getting 50m litres of water a day [Ml\/d] by the end of the current five-year investment cycle and \u201c75Ml\/d during drought periods\u201d by 2031, according to the water company\u2019s documents.<\/p>\n A Thames Water spokesperson said the Gateway desalination plant is designed to provide up to 5% of London\u2019s supply \u201cduring very dry conditions\u201d, with decisions on operation based on long-term forecasts and storage levels. Once safety works and maintenance are complete it will run \u201cin line with our water resources management plan\u201d.<\/p>\n The TDRA is \u201cneeded in addition to the plant along with our significant investment in leaks and work to reduce demand for water through metering\u201d, said the spokesperson. In 2023-24, Thames Water lost 570.4m litres a day through leaks.<\/p>\n The TDRA scheme would secure supplies for millions by providing up to 75m litres a day during drought by pumping Thames water upstream of Teddington Weir into the Lee Valley reservoirs. This would be replaced with \u201cclean recycled water\u201d from sewage treatment, it said. \u201cCommunities have our absolute assurance that no untreated sewage will enter the river \u2026 it is physically impossible by design,\u201d said Thames Water.<\/p>\n \u201cThe project will not go ahead without demonstrating to the Environment Agency that the water is safe to return to the river,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In a meeting last year with the MP Munira Wilson, whose Twickenham constituency would house the TDRA, Thames Water\u2019s chief executive, Chris Weston, acknowledged the desalination plant, which was originally mooted to provide about 100m litres of water a day, had been used only a handful of times and said that was because \u201cit doesn\u2019t work the way we expected it to\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/span>The TDRA scheme would remove water from the river at Teddington (pictured), pump it to the Lee Valley reservoirs and replace it with treated effluent from Mogden sewage works in west London.<\/span> Photograph: Jill Mead\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Wilson said: \u201cTime and time again, Thames Water has told us that their Teddington scheme represents the \u2018best value\u2019 option. But it\u2019s yet another example of Thames Water failing to invest in the essentials, whilst pouring millions of pounds of bill payers\u2019 money into short-term fixes that do nothing but produce new assets for the company to borrow against.<\/p>\n \u201cThis leaves billpayers and residents rightly asking why they should fund yet another white elephant that could damage our precious river and people\u2019s health for very limited gain. With Thames Water\u2019s failures exposed for all to see, it\u2019s high time the government cleaned up our water sector once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Janina Grey from Wildfish said: \u201cDesalination is no silver bullet, but neither are the proposed alternatives. We must end the routine exploitation of rivers and groundwater. The toxic mix of drought on already stressed river systems is pushing iconic species like the endangered Atlantic salmon closer to extinction \u2013 while Thames Water continues to prioritise profits over the health of our rivers.\u201d<\/p>\n Without action to secure water resources, England faces a shortfall of 5bn litres a day for public water supplies by 2055 \u2013 and a further 1bn litres a day deficit for the wider economy \u2013 according to Defra. Half of the predicted 5bn litres a day shortfall is in the south-east of England.<\/p>\n A Defra spokesperson said: \u201cPressure on our water system is soaring. This government is committed to increasing our water supply while protecting the environment and public health. To secure water supplies effectively, we need more water recycling projects like the TDRA, combined with new reservoirs. This project will be subject to further public scrutiny and rigorous assessment before any final decisions are made.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" London\u2019s desalination plant has cost more than half a billion pounds since 2010 and has run only five times, delivering 7.2bn litres of drinking water, roughly seven days of London\u2019s typical daily demand. Now Thames Water is planning a new \u00a3500m project to tackle drought in the capital. The Thames Gateway desalination plant at Beckton,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[3200,546,8852,1869,1182,1183,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-23992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-500m","9":"tag-days","10":"tag-desalination","11":"tag-plant","12":"tag-thames","13":"tag-water","14":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}