Scottish Water to upgrade water treatment plant in Renfrewshire

Water and sewerage services provider Scottish Water is soon to initiate upgrade works for the Muirdykes Water Treatment Works (WTW) in Renfrewshire.

The upgrade, which is expected to cost around £16m, will involve installation of a new filtration building and process at the facility.

The filtration system is intended to bring down the risk of discoloured water in the network which is the result of naturally-occurring manganese.

The water treatment facility, which is located near Howwood, serves more than 84,000 residents across the Renfrewshire council area including Johnstone, Howwood, Linwood, Elderslie, Kilbarchan, Quarrelton, Craigend and parts of the south of Paisley such as Glenburn and Foxbar.

Scottish Water has already spent four million pounds in the Scottish council area two years ago to improve over 100 miles of water mains affected by discoloured water.

The works also involved installation of Wears Resmix system at Barcraigs reservoir near Howwood in 2012.

Scottish Water senior project manager Iain McMillan said: "These improvements in the past three years have helped to tackle the problem of manganese and discoloured water in the Muirdykes WTW supply zone.

"However, this major investment at the WTW, and the installation of a new filtration process, will improve the robustness of our system and further reduce the risk of manganese and discoloured water in the longer-term.

"While we cannot guarantee there will be no recurrence of manganese and discoloured water in the Muirdykes network, our upgrade of the WTW will substantially reduce the risk and we know the investment will be welcomed by our customers in Renfrewshire."

Black & Veatch, who had been contracted for the upgrades, is expected to start work on the project on 1 September and complete it by 2017.

The filtration process to be installed at the facility will eliminate oxidised manganese from the system before it is supplied in the region. It will be housed in a single-storey building which will be built for the WTW at the site.

Drinking Water Quality Regulator is expected to deliver the manganese removal system for this area.