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DELTARES, FEBRUARY 2016
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Alliance between Deltares and industry produces innovative techniques
and creates new market opportunities for business.
A
msterdam is a densely-populated
city. So every square centimetre
of space saved is welcome. An
opportunity arose in 2005 when the
sewage-treatment plants in the east
and south of the city were closed and
a new plant was built on the other side of the city in
the western port area.
Water company Waternet was faced with a few
problems related to the transportation of dirty water
from homes and companies to the new location:
How do you move waste water through a forty-
kilometre-long mains system? How can you stop the
spread of unpleasant smells and minimise costs?
The answer to those questions was to install four
booster pumping stations that pump 300,000 cubic
metres of water to the western port area every day.
That saves space - and cuts costs - because no
underground cellars are needed to store the waste
water. The closed system of pressure pipelines also
stops unpleasant odours.
Waternet called in Deltares, Witteveen+Bos and
Berenschot Osborne to develop this solution. The idea
of the booster pumping stations was worked out in
detail and the pump configurations were thoroughly
tested in simulations. Nothing had to go wrong. The
intensive preparation paid o£: the transition from
the old to the new transport system in 2005 went o£
without a hitch. And now, ten years later, the boosters
are still doing a great job.
PHOTO: GOOGLE EARTH
Booster pumping
station North
Booster pumping
station West
Wastewater
treatment plant
Amsterdam West
Booster pumping
station East
Booster pumping
station South
SPACE-SAVING
TRANSPORTATION
OF WASTEWATER
KNOWLEDGE
IN OPERATION