Ayesa Wetlands Effluent Treatment & Management Systems

WETLAND EFFLUENT TREATMENT SYSTEMS

At Ayesa we take a pragmatic approach to effluent management from generation through treatment to disposal. Our first step is to always assess your needs.

Site-Specific Solutions

We develop a site-specific solution that satisfies our client’s needs while being environmentally sustainable, cost-effective and practical to maintain.

Our approach includes point source discharge assessments based on the EPR H1 Environmental Risk Assessment requirements; These requirements include evaluating the impacts on receiving water bodies and identifying the effluent treatment to meet the outlined discharge limits. Once we identify the appropriate solution, we liaise with the water utility operator and the Environment Agency to secure the discharge consent to land, surface water, or sewer.

We have used Wetland treatment across a range of industrial or municipal effluents, and it can be utilised as a stand-alone design or integrated with other technologies.

Wetland Effluent Treatment Systems can assist clients in resilience and net-zero goals

Our pillar of Commitment to Clients guides our ethical duty to provide sustainable schemes that improve the quality of life and preserve natural resources and ecosystems for future generations.

Our in-house Environmental and Sustainability team, who work with companies, governments and private entities, can work together with our geoscience and waste management teams providing Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) or other specialist consulting assistance as required.

“Nature-based solutions can help clients achieve resilience, sustainability and net-zero goals”

A low cost, practical, easy to maintain, sustainable and environmentally sensitive solution to effluent treatment.

BYRNELOOBY. AN AYESA COMPANY | Capability | Wetland Effluent Treatment Systems

RECENT PROJECTS

Location: Scotland Project

Name: Bishopton Development

Country: UK

Client: BAE Systems

2. Vegetable Processing Factory Effluent

1. Solving an effluent treatment problem on the site of Britain’s largest brownfield regeneration project.

Background: Situated near the Scottish city of Glasgow, Bishopton is home to Dargavel Village – one of the UK’s largest brownfield regeneration projects. BAE Systems is transforming and redeveloping the 2,400 acres former Royal Ordnance Factory site into a modern, well-connected community of 4,000 homes, with retail, community, travel and commercial facilities. Dargavel Village is due to be complete by 2034.

Our Role: Ayesa assisted BAE Systems at the Bishopton redevelopment site to manage a complex effluent treatment problem using a 2,000 m2 reed bed and integrated leachate management system. Ayesa designed the system, and it was constructed in 2013. The scheme was taken through biological process commissioning and is now operational. As part of the remediation of this former munitions production site, contaminated soils were excavated and placed in a landfill. The leachate from the landfill was treated before discharge into the local surface water system. The design incorporates contingencies for the ongoing expansion of the landfill and ensures that any leachable contaminants from a parallel soil washing pad are degraded before discharge into a nearby surface watercourse.

Our integrated system provides a sustainable solution that can cope with intermediate strength landfill leachates, where ammonia concentrations are below the average threshold for conventional treatment plants (<200 mg/l) but above that which is usually treated in reed beds (5 to 20 mg/l).

Background: During the first phase of our submission for the Environmental Permit, we undertook a groundwater risk assessment which showed that the site’s effluent (600 – 1,100m3/day) could continue its discharge into the groundwater soakaway.

In tandem with our application, we reviewed the existing lagoon aeration and reed bed treatment system. Our team proposed sustainable improvements to future-proof the design and improved the treatment’s efficiency following our assessment.

3. Landfill Leachate Reed Bed Treatment & Discharge Support

Background: An ageing reedbed site designed some 15 years earlier was not performing, and the client was at risk of prosecution by the Environment Agency.

Firstly, we varied the discharge consent on the Environmental Permit and advised on the required remediation of the existing system to successfully treat the inflows of a high ammonia effluent. Once this mitigation approach was detailed and precise, Ayesa applied to the Environment Agency to secure the permit to discharge the system into a local watercourse, which was successfully approved.

OUR WORK ON OTHER PROJECTS

• Veolia Environmental Services: Veolia is a UK leader in resource management, who provide a range of waste, water and energy management services. On their behalf, our team prepared two H1 Environmental Risk and Best Available Techniques (BAT) assessments and the discharge consent applications to allow the discharge of aerobic bioreactor treated landfill leachate to a sewer. We prepared the treatability trials and a detailed process design for one of the sites. This design has formed the basis for the tender stage of the design and build.

• HJ Banks – Palmersville Landfill: Ayesa provided the process design and prepared the EPR permit submissions to facilitate the installation of a wetland treatment system at the site of the Palmersville Landfill. Leachate levels within the landfill were allowed to rise and overtop into the reedbed system—this formed part of the passive management methodology for the eventual surrender of the EPR Permit. The wetlands also accept surface water drainage from a nearby residential development.

• Shepard Landfill Site: Our team provided the process design for a settlement and reedbed system to treat run-off water from the landfill. Treatment was required for a range of potential contaminants including BOD, organic contaminants and heavy metals.

• Industrial Waste Landfill: The leachate from this particular site (pictured below) contained elevated concentrations of ammonia, metals and volatile organic compounds. The site required treatment to allow discharge of the treated effluent to surface water. We undertook a review of the volumetric flow data, water chemistry and load to ascertain which substances required treatment. We analysed contaminants by type (e.g. solvents,

VOCs, priority metal, ammonium and degradable organic matter) to inform our selection of the appropriate treatment. From first principles, we designed an integrated air stripping, sedimentation and reedbed system to correctly size the treatment elements to facilitate discharge of the treated effluent from the site.

• Alkaline / Hypersaline Industrial Effluent: TWe designed the sustainable wetland/reedbed treatment system to remove the copper and nickel from a hypersaline & caustic cement kiln dust effluent. Our teams undertook benchtop to on-site pilot-scale trials as part of the design process. We designed the system as a sustainable low-maintenance plant to operate in a remote location that had restricted access to services. The system means there is no need for a high volume acid dosing and ion-exchange treatment, which is typically needed for complex biologically inhibitory hypersaline effluent.

• Cement Kiln Effluent: We designed a passive constructed wetland scheme for a closed quarry and cement kiln dust tip. This scheme works to precipitate calcium and iron from the site’s run-off water to prevent smothering the incoming streams from an iron-calcified emulsion. This system complements the site’s ongoing restoration as a nature reserve.

• Domestic Sewer Effluent Management System: We designed a short rotation coppice (Willow) wastewater management system in an environmentally sensitive location where the regulatory authorities had prohibited discharge of nutrient bearing effluent. We selected the willow coppice system as it is one of the few mechanisms with no liquid release, and waters are managed by (ET) evapotranspiration. ET is the combined process of water surface evaporation, soil moisture evaporation, and plant transpiration.