Thames Water’s wastewater maintenance and repair partner Lanes Utilities is removing a 10-tonne fatberg and the section of sewer it is blocking under streets in West London.
The 50-metre-long fatberg was so heavy that it weakened the sewer to the point that it began to collapse when Lanes engineers tried to remove it. The water company concluded the 70-year-old sewer had been damaged beyond repair and had to be replaced.
The only option was to remove the affected section of the egg-shaped sewer, which is 1100 mm high and 750 mm wide, with the fat still in it.
Lanes Utilities, part of Lanes Group Plc, is coordinating work to remove the fatberg and install a new concrete sewer pipe. In places, Lanes Utilities' civil engineering partner, Cappagh Browne, have had to dig down to the sewer using only hand tools to avoid disturbing a complex network of other utility pipes.
Conrad Ashby, Thames Water Framework Director for Lanes Utilities, said:
"Managing these sewer rehabilitation projects is hugely costly and time-consuming.
"In this case, contingency plans have had to be put in place to divert sewer water through over-pumping. Traffic management has been introduced during the work, which is taking several weeks.
"These are all reasons why it would be so much better if service users could avoid contributing to the problem, through sensible disposal of their waste."
Thames Water's ‘Bin it - don't block it' campaign is aimed at reducing the number of fatberg and drain blockage problems across its service area, which takes in London, Thames Valley and parts of South West England.
London's largest ever recorded fatberg, weighing in at 15 tonnes, was found in Kingston in August 2013. Last year, Thames Water removed a fatberg as long as a Jumbo Jet from a sewer in Shepherd's Bush.
Lanes Utilities carries out more than 350,000 maintenance and repair jobs for Thames Water every year. A significant number of them are related to drain and sewer blockages caused by oils, fat and wipes being wrongly disposed of down sinks and toilets.
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