Esholt Water Treatment Works - April 2010

[MJS]

'Water treatment' means gank sewage!!

History...

In 1867, the city prohibited the use of Bradford Beck water in the canal, which soon ran dry. The Beck’s only real utility to the town was now as a main sewer, and in that capacity the stream served as the depository for all of the town’s waste. Even when sewer pipes had first been installed in Bradford, in the mid-19th century, they merely dumped the (untreated) sewage directly into the Beck, to the deep unhappiness of downstream landowners on both the Beck and the Aire. In 1869 one of these landowners, a William Stansfield of Esholt Hall, obtained an injunction mandating that Bradford treat its sewage before releasing it into the river. The first treatment plant proved to be a failure as the grease from the wool mills made the sewage exceptionally difficult to treat, but continued injunctions forced the city to continue investing in treatment facilities. Ironically, in 1899, the city took over William Stansfield’s Esholt estate on the Aire for a new treatment plant, and the Esholt Sewage Works continues to be Bradford’s main treatment plant today. In the 1920s, the three-mile Esholt Sewage Disposal tunnel was dug to directly connect the city’s sewer system to the Esholt works, and the Bradford Beck was finally freed of its sewerage burden. By this time, however, the river had already been completely culverted through the center of town, and so few fully appreciated the change that had taken place.

Within the past few years, Morgan Est, Morgan Sindall's infrastructure arm, won a £39m contract from Yorkshire Water to upgrade the sewage works.
The Esholt Sewage Works is being improved as part of the Yorkshire Water Large Schemes Framework. The upgrade is seeing the 100-year-old secondary treatment plant being replaced by new 'activated sludge' process.

Some pics from the older part of the site...

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drill bit!

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underneath

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on top!



Part of the £39 million upgrade....

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Once you get over the concrete walls, you're on a mesh walkway over looking an immense amount of sewage!...

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Here's a couple on film at one of the inflows last summer. Before and after the gush!

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And some more on film from the upgraded section
(Ilford 1600iso)

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Not the most aromatic of sites, but some good stuff to see!