Thames Water engineers have cleared record lengths of sewer to help protect customers and the environment from flooding.
Spanning further than the distance between John O’Groats and Land’s End, 1,500km of underground pipes have been swept since April last year using a range of techniques, from hi-tech camera technology as part of the company’s digital revolution to hand tools on the most stubborn blockages.
The work is to ensure sewers can safely take away the wastewater of millions of customers in London and the Thames Valley without being blocked by obstacles like fatbergs.
Working with partners including Lanes Group, McAllister Group and OnSite, and despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the water company’s work included a record-breaking 190km in February alone.
It has now set an ambitious target of cleaning a further 2,300km next year.
Matt Rimmer, Thames Water’s head of waste networks, said:
“Despite not being the most glamorous job, battling fatbergs and other blockages in our sewers is absolutely vital in ensuring we’re able to safely take away the waste of our millions of customers.
“Once again we’ve carried out a record amount of cleaning this year but we aren’t stopping there and have ambitious plans to go even further to keep our sewers flowing as smoothly as possible to help protect our customers and the environment.”
The vital work included using high powered water jets to blast away blockages and powerful vacuums to suck them out.
Engineers even had to use hand tools to break down some of the more persistent blockages and carried out extensive surveying of the sewers, including using remote cameras attached to small floating barges, to help identify any blockages or defects.
Areas where sewers were cleaned have seen internal flooding and pollutions halve in the last year, while emergency blockage clearances went down by almost one-third.
Next year’s programme will see engineers clean an average of 192km of sewers every month.
Thames Water cleared a total of 900km of sewers in 2019/20, a 50% increase on the previous year’s total and three times higher than in 2017/18.
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