The pumping station will be more than 100m deep and approximately 40m in diameter and will have an ultimate peak pumping capacity of 3.3 million cubic metres per day.
ADSSC owns and operates Abu Dhabi’s sewerage network and treatment plants. The Strategic Tunnel Enhancement Programme (STEP), part of ADSSC’s plan to increase system capacity, is a deep 41km long tunnel sewer and several systems of link sewers which will collect and transport wastewater to a main pumping station for onward treatment at the Al Wathba Independent Sewage Treatment Plants (ISPTs). An underground pumping station will be built at the downstream end of the deep tunnel to lift the sewage to the surface, and into newly constructed ISTPs.
The pumping station will be housed in a large deep structure at one end of the tunnel. The facility will also accommodate electrical and power generation facilities, operations and maintenance facilities, standby power fuel storage and pumping and a flow distribution facility.
Peter Hall, Mott MacDonald’s project director, said: “The UAE is the third largest consumer of water in the world after Canada and the USA. There is a daily water consumption rate of nearly 550 litres per person in a region that receives less than 1cm of rain per year. Therefore, management and reuse of wastewater is a critical component to Abu Dhabi’s long-term sustainability.”
The project should be completed during 2015.