WHARFEDALE TR's VISIT HEADINGLEY WATER TREATMENT WORKS

Wharfedale TR’s Visit Headingley Water Treatment Works 10th OCTOBER 2024

Kitted up ready to head out into the works

We pride ourselves on finding interesting and unusual places to visit, and this certainly turned out to be one of them. I think most of us didn’t quite know what to expect, some thought it would be very smelly. As it turned out it was not smelly at all.

This facility doesn’t treat sewage, it only treats water for human consumption.

The facility also calls itself an Education Centre, and a lot of the information is aimed at schools and colleges regarding water, where it comes from, its treatment and the environment.

Headingley Treatment Works abstracts water from Thruscross, Swinsty & Fewston Reservoirs, as well as various rivers and bore holes in the Eastern side of Yorkshire. The abstraction from rivers and boreholes is carried out under license, which control the amount which can be drawn out.

The 1.5 metre diameter pipe bringing some of the water into the facility.

The water then passes through various filtering and settlement processes, starting out with removing large scale objects such as twigs and leaves etc, working all the way down to Herbicides and Pesticides, and other nasties that can’t be seen with the naked eye. The final filtering being carried out through sand and carbon.

Part way through the filtering process, the removed contaminants resemble a thick brown sludge, the guide described it as looking like a Chocolate Brownie, hmm, I don’t think I will look a Brownie in quite the same way again.

Vast expanse of settlement and filter tanks

Not sure I'll look at a Chocolate Brownie the same way again

Scraping tanks, that remove the surface sediment

There are other Treatment facilities throughout Yorkshire, Fixby near Huddersfield for example draws its water from Scammondon Dam.

13 of us took part in the visit, along with 6 from Weston University who were doing an online course in water treatment and the environment.

All in all a very interesting morning.

Afterwards we headed to Crag House Farm, which John Hussey had previously sniffed out for a bite to eat and a cuppa. A very nice place it was too.

Ian Meeson