Water Treatment Plant, Seaton, Devon

This was one of those happenstance visits when I had a walk in June 2009 to take some photos along the marshes - where the water plant is situated - and found the gate open! So, I took the opportunity to have a look around.

I was rumbled soon after and met the operative who was working inside the plant. He very kindly gave me a quick tour and explained the workings, this being a newer, more modern plant than is usual. Unfortunately, most of the photos came out quite badly; those that weren't too bad are the bright, blue sky ones. However, I couldn't believe my luck when the gate was again open during another walk on a grey, wintry day in February 2011...and this time I wasn't nobbled!

Some of the photos from the first visit showing the machine where sewage is treated and turned into dry silage for farms.

And in this one was where I was shown the outlet for the treated water, which travels along an underground pipe and out into the sea.

The rest of the photos were taken on my second visit.

I got a bit carried away photographing the process machine but I found the pipe work fascinating.

During that visit the machine started up when I walked past and I nearly had a heart attack! I tried taking a photo of the silage as it came out of the pipe but it was intermittent and I kept missing it.

There was a lot to see this time as I was able to get around more of the site. I don't recall all the information I was given on the first visit so I'll just copy the write-up about sewage and water treatment plants in general from my Colyford treatment plant blog article.

There are so many different types of plants, and many different processes, that it's hard to find a suitably comprehensive definitive explanation. However, I've managed to make sense of the very basics, which go something like this...

Water Filtration consists of four processes; Preliminary Treatment - screening out solids, Primary Settlement & Secondary Settlement - sedimentation beds, and Tertiary - includes such things as biological/chemical cleaning, nutrient stripping in filter beds and effluent discharge.

Obviously, there's a lot more to it than that, but I don't want to get bogged down (no pun intended, by the way, lol) with a huge amount of details for every different kind of process...even if I could sort it out from all the information available! ;)

 

The circular settling tanks that I saw at Colyford (also known as sedimentation or sand filtration tanks) contain layers of anthracite, sand and gravel. As the name suggests, they are used to filter out sediment from the water. However, the ones here are a bit different and have covers to them, seen below.

And there we have it! I really like the way the Seaton plant differs a lot from the Colyford one. Both fascinating in their own way. It would be nice to visit another one or two to see other differences, especially in the more modern versions. I'll have to see what I can do. :)