Scottish Water has finally explained in detail what caused the Ellon Waste Water Treatment Works disaster.
An extensive clean-up and recovery operation had to be mounted by the publicly-owned water company after a large number of plastic biofilters escaped into the River Ythan in November 2022.
The water rose to near-record levels and overwhelmed containment measures causing them to spill into the river.
“Vast numbers” of them were released into the River Ythan and since the disaster, little pieces have been spreading all over the north-east coastline.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) warned people at the time not to pick them up as they were used to provide a substrate for the growth of bacteria in the plant.
A group of councillors and environmental stakeholders recently visited the plant to discuss Scottish Water’s progress.
Scottish Water has now confirmed it has spent over £315,000 on its response, with around 60 people involved from its own team and supply chain businesses in the north-east.
The organisation said it has also received “crucial” help from community-led beach cleans and from individual members of the public.
In April, despite the cleanup efforts, walkers on Aberdeen Beach still noticed dozens of the oddly-shaped items.
But waste water operations manager for Scottish Water Nina Ker admitted the recovery of all the biofilters is not “realistically possible”, but said that a “great deal” of progress had been made.
She said Scottish Water had been focusing on the Forvie National Nature Reserve and thanked the NatureScot team for their assistance.
What caused the Ellon Waste Water Treatment Works disaster?
Scottish Water has also provided a detailed account of what went wrong at the Ellon Waste Water Treatment Works for the first time.
The site in Ellon was upgraded between 2019 and 2022 so it could continue to support the town’s growing population.
Its new sewage treatment process involved using the biofilters suspended within tanks to help provide a higher level of treatment without needing to expand the footprint of the site.
But a fault occurred in November causing the biofilters to spill over the top and into the site.
Containment measures initially protected the local environment and the majority of the filters were contained.
However, when the floods peaked on November 18 and 19, the safeguards were overwhelmed and the biofilters were released.
Watch the video The Press and Journal made on the disaster in January below.
Biofilters removed from Ellon sewage plant
Now in an effort to never repeat the disaster, Scottish Water has announced the biofilters have been removed from the Ellon plant.
The public water company has said it will not be reintroduced “until we are satisfied” the right measures are in place to “minimise risk of recurrence”.
It is expected to reinstall the biofilters in the years ahead.
In the meantime, Scottish Water is encouraging members of the public to report any significant numbers of biofilters so that clean-up activity can be arranged.
A detailed technical review of the Ellon site is due to be carried out in the future.
Scottish Water plans to hold a drop-in event in the area later in the year to share its findings and provide a further update on the next steps.
Conversation