David Morris MP recently visited the Waste water treatment works in Morecambe to see the Nereda wastewater treatment technology. This technology is industry leading and is as a result of a 4 year upgrade worth £70 million to the facility in Morecambe by United Utilities.
The technology upgrades the stormwater storage to 23,000m3 of water and reduces spills to 2 per bathing season as required by the bathing water directive.
United Utilities are an industry leading company performing company in terms of pollution performance according to the Environment Agency’s star rating.
David Morris MP said:
‘We can be greatly proud of the industry leading facility in Heysham. The UV treatment technology we have is one of the best in the world and it was highly impressive to see the samples of water from each stage of the process.
From the visit what struck me the most was the impact that wet wipes have on the systems when people flush them and how many the team at Heysham have to drag out of the water before it can be treated. We all have a part to play in this and must ensure we are not flushing anything down the toilet that shouldn’t be there.
We also spoke about the better Rivers campaign United Utilities are spearheading in the North West which identifies sources of water pollution and works with local stakeholders to reduce pollution in our Rivers. Storm overflows only account for 5% of pollution in our rivers so there is a vital piece of work to identify and work with all sources of pollution to improve water quality going on.