Discussions continue with South West Water

Exmouth Town Councillors and Officers at Maer Lane sewage treatment centre.

Exmouth Town Council attended a site visit of the Maer Lane sewage treatment centre on Thursday 21st September to understand the process of treating sewage and sludge.
Maer Lane treatment centre treats sewage from Exmouth and the surrounding area. There is a complicated network behind this consisting of pipes, storage tanks and pumping stations.
When a treatment works or pumping station is treating or pumping as much wastewater as it can, any excess flows into storm tanks. These tanks store the wastewater until the flow reduces.
Storm overflows happen when storm tanks fill up so quickly that they literally start to overflow. Wastewater spills over directly into rivers or the sea before it has chance to get treated.
South West Water are making improvements to reduce the number of times an overflow happens and aim to get this down to 10 times a year for those storm overflows that impact the quality of bathing waters.

At the Maer Lane site the sewage undergoes a 5-stage process of screening, settling, aeration and further screening before the environmentally friendly water is released into the sea. The site is also one of 5 sites which can treat sludge.
How can I help?
Most of the sewers are only 15cm wide. They are perfectly designed to transport all the wastewater, pee, poo and toilet paper. But unfortunately, these are not the only things that are founds down there ……..

South West Water Screening machine

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