Ellington IVC Re-Development Project

reviewed & Updated august 2009

Introduction

This document serves to update Newcastle City Council as to the current situation with regard to the re-development of the existing IVC facility at Ellington, Northumberland.

Improvements will be carried out to:

The work is estimated to take up to 10 months. The plant will experience a 4 month shutdown, commencing in the first quarter of 2010, during which no material will be accepted. This is necessary to allow works to be carried out in the tunnel areas.

Re-development Issues & Drivers

The principal areas to be addressed in the modifications are odour, concrete cracking, leachate drainage, overall capacity & throughput, final screening & processing.

Odour is considered to be produced by the failing of the aerations system; given the nature of the MSW material and the density of the material the fans have been found to be ineffective in providing adequate air pressure to allow full aeration of the material within the vessel, which can cause odours. The second area to consider is the treatment of emissions generated throughout the composting process. In order to address these issues the tunnels are to be modified as summarised below:

The improvement to the concrete hardstandings and roadways will form part of the redevelopment scheme. The depth of the floors within the tunnels are to be increased to accommodate the aeration system. This will require the floor in the amber area to be re-constructed at increased depth with ramps constructed approaching barrier 1 tunnels and falling from barrier 2 onto the maturation area.

The concrete in these areas will overlay the existing concrete providing a greater depth of concrete and coverage of existing cracking. All other areas of damaged or cracking concrete will be repaired.

The new leachate drainage system will be designed and incorporated within the tunnel floors. The drainage system is to be fully sealed, with inspection and cleaning hatches as appropriate.

By increasing the aeration system to the tunnels, as detailed above, the production of leachate liquor will also be reduced. The leachate that is produced will drain and collect into a treatment tank, which will screen the leachate to remove solids; the solid residue will be sent to landfill whilst the leachate liquor will be used to add moisture to the compost within the tunnels in both barriers 1 and 2, to maintain suitable composting conditions. The adding of the leachate in the tunnels will be necessary given the increased air delivery.

The design will remove the potential for leachate to pool outside of the containment area and reduce the need for extensive housekeeping.

Throughput is to be increased to the original 40,000tpa through the combination of increasing the processing ability of the tunnels, with new air handling and drainage as detailed above, and clearing the maturation pad of the existing redundant final processing equipment. In addition an integrated process control system is to be introduced to control and monitor the process 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. To house the electrical distribution and control panels a new plant room is to be constructed to the South of the existing process water tank.

The final processing facility will be housed in a new structure to the positioned on the existing concrete hardstanding area to the North West of the site. The building will house new product refining equipment comprising two trommels and a densimetric table to remove contaminants from the compost product. The capacity of this equipment will also be determined to enable the design throughput of the IVC facility to be achieved. The densimetric table will remove glass, stone and similar dense material which will “clean up” the final product to enable it to be used as a soil improver on a wider range of sites than is currently possible with the existing output material.

Progress To Date

The planning application was submitted in January 2009 and planning consent has been received.

The tender documents for process works were issued in December 2008, documents have been returned and the Process Design, Manufacture & Procurement contract has been awarded to WTT.

Atkins have also been appointed for Project Management and Civil & Building design activities.

Detailed design works for Process, Civil and Building works have been completed and technical (detailing all construction works) tender documents were issued to Civil and Building works tenderers during July 2009. Contractual terms and conditions tender documents will be issued in August 2009.

Revised Timescale Programme for Tender Process & Construction

It is anticipated that tenders will be returned by 11^th September 2009 after which time we will jointly carry out an assessment exercise with Atkins and enter into final negotiations with our preferred bidder.

During negotiations and prior to contract award we will agree the construction works programme and the exact timings of the IVC facility closure to incoming materials.

We will issue a further reviewed and updated summary at the end of September 2009 to advise of progress to date.

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27/08/2009