Czech town welcomes wastewater treatment installation

A new waste­water treat­ment sys­tem installed in a town in the Czech Repub­lic will pro­tect val­ued fish­ing ponds and raise the qual­i­ty to required EU envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards. Pack­aged waste­water treat­ment plant provider WPL installed a below-ground sys­tem in Klimkovice, in the country’s Mora­vian-Sile­sian region, as part of a munic­i­pal­i­ty-led project to con­struct a first-time sew­er­age net­work to serve 340 of the town’s residents.

Some 110 prop­er­ties will con­nect to the new sys­tem, replac­ing age­ing sep­tic tanks that had been seep­ing into streams which flowed into the pop­u­lar fish­ing ponds, impact­ing the qual­i­ty of the waters, which have pro­tec­tions under the EU’s Water Frame­work Direc­tive. The project was wel­comed by the local com­mu­ni­ty and its suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion marked with an open­ing ceremony.

Fran­tisek Lin­dovsky, WPL’s man­ag­er for cen­tral Europe, said: “It was the municipality’s aim to pro­tect the ponds and pro­vide a clean and healthy envi­ron­ment for the fish, which is why the deci­sion was tak­en to invest in a new sew­er net­work and sewage treat­ment plant. WPL’s tech­nol­o­gy was con­sid­ered the most suit­able because our treat­ment units are mod­u­lar, com­pact and ready-to-use.

“The com­plet­ed sys­tem, which will be fed by the town’s new sew­er net­work, will sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve the qual­i­ty of the local streams and fish­ing ponds and ensure they meet the envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards set out by the EU.”

The project team had to over­come sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges caused by high ground­wa­ter lev­els, which hin­dered instal­la­tion of the treat­ment tanks.  To man­age this, engi­neers built a tem­po­rary well so that water could be con­tin­u­al­ly pumped out and lev­els kept down through­out construction.

The installed treat­ment plant – WPL’s Hybrid-SAF bio­log­i­cal sys­tem – com­pris­es units designed to con­trol chem­i­cal oxy­gen demand (COD), bio­chem­i­cal oxy­gen demand (BOD) sus­pend­ed solids, and ammo­nia. A remote mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem was also installed.  The high envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards required includ­ed 30mg/l BOD, 110mg/l COD, 40mg/l sus­pend­ed solids and 20mg/l ammonia.

To pro­tect the below-ground units from excess ground­wa­ter the exca­va­tion was ful­ly back­filled with water-resis­tant con­crete.  A small bio­log­i­cal pond was also con­struct­ed by a munic­i­pal­i­ty-sourced sup­pli­er to pro­vide ter­tiary treat­ment and extra capac­i­ty was built into the sys­tem to cater for pop­u­la­tion growth. The scheme was financed by the EU Cohe­sion Fund, which aims to pro­mote sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, and the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment of the Czech Republic.

The may­or of Klimkovice, Jaroslav Var­ga, said: “The area’s fish­ing ponds are used for fish farm­ing as well as leisure, so it was impor­tant to pro­tect them.  Instal­la­tion of the project was exe­cut­ed with­out any prob­lems and WPL worked with us very proac­tive­ly. We’re hap­py they will assist us in the first few months of operation.”

Lin­dovsky said: “The may­or con­sid­ered this to be a very suc­cess­ful project because it was on time and with­in bud­get and they want­ed to cel­e­brate com­ple­tion with drinks and a speech. As waste­water treat­ment spe­cial­ists it is very sat­is­fy­ing to see the pride tak­en in the new sys­tem and the lev­el of appre­ci­a­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits it will bring.” The site will be man­aged by the munic­i­pal­i­ty with WPL pro­vid­ing super­vi­sion and support.