Anglian Water’s engineering and construction partner, the @one Alliance, has built its first water-treatment wetland as it embraces nature-based engineering solutions.
Covering 1.8 hectares, the wetland reduces the amount of phosphate contained in the outflow of a sewage treatment plant serving the village of Everton in Bedfordshire. Too much phosphate overnourishes organisms like algae, throwing the local water ecosystem out of balance.
Its three kidney-bean-shaped ponds have been planted with around 108,000 individual plants from seven phosphate-hungry species local to the area.
Anglian Water could have done the usual thing and built a chemical dosing plant to leach the phosphate out, but the utility saw an opportunity both to avoid the carbon emissions involved in building hard infrastructure and to boost the area’s biodiversity by letting actual plants do the work of a chemical plant.
BNG bonanza
The wetland is now entering its second year of a three-year maturation process.
It’s a biodiversity net gain bonanza, and locals enjoy watching the influx of deer, birds, waterfowl and invertebrates – although geese sabotaged construction at one point.
In our video, Chris Gerrard, head of natural environment at Anglian Water and Mark Williams, senior project manager in charge of nature-based solutions for the @one Alliance, explain how it works, what they learned and what they’re doing next.
