United Utilities has issued a Periodic Indicative Notice with the aim of finding suppliers with additional capacity for the storage of biosolids.
The water company is looking for potential storage locations for biosolids (treated sewage sludge) for emergency storage within in the North West to help them in managing the new farming rules for water impacts.
The requirement for the storage facilities is to provide the company with short term resilience for its biosolids operations.
United Utilities’s biosolids is a treated sewage sludge destined to be recycled in to Agriculture. All
of the Company’s biosolids are treated and certified by Biosolids Assurance Scheme (BAS)
The water company now requires an additional maximum storage capacity of 30,000 tonnes.
The biosolids comes in cake form (semi solids) at an average of 20 -30 % Dry Solids and is stackable up to 2m high on covered storage and potentially 1m high on open storage when stored in windrows with sufficient space between each pile. (Potential suppliers should utilise 800kg/m2 for open storage and 1.5tonne/ m2 for covered storage capacity calculations).
Due to the logistics and the administrations involved, United Utilities is ideally looking for covered storage with a capacity of over 1000 tonnes (over 667 m2) or open concrete pads of over 2000 tonnes (over 2500 m2).
Biosolids storages typically require a suitable Environmental permit from the EA/ with EWC
codes including 19 08 05, 09 02 06 or 19 06 06.
However, the Environment Agency has published Regulatory Position Statement (RPS) 253 which allows non-permitted storage locations to be utilised for biosolids storage until August 2022. Non permitted storage facilities must be able to meet the conditions outlined on the RPS253.
The water company is asking interested suppliers to provide their details by 1st March 2022 ahead of going out to tender with a formal contract notice in May.
Click here to access the Periodic Indicative Notice