As a European Union member state, Spain must regularly assess the performance of its water treatment and sanitation infrastructure to verify compliance with Directive 91/271/EEC.
TYPSA has been providing technical assistance to ESAMUR (the Murcia Regional Government’s sanitation and water treatment authority) for this purpose since 2003, monitoring the operation and maintenance of sanitation and water treatment infrastructure in Zone I (South, Guadalentín and Northwest).
The technical services provided entail monitoring 48 waste water treatment plants, 28 pumping stations and their corresponding discharge pipes, the main collecting systems and marine outfalls in San Pedro del Pinatar and Mar Menor Sur, both about 4 km in length. Treated flow in 2017 totalled 38,110,505 m3/year with an organic load of approximately 644,481 population equivalent.
Cabezo Beaza (Cartagena) and La Hoya (Lorca) wastewater treatment plants stand out due to their anaerobic digestion systems with cogeneration facilities to generate electricity from biogas, while marine outfall monitoring constitutes a particularly interesting part of the service scope. Divers perform structural inspections of the outfalls using underwater filming equipment, and sediments and organisms are monitored to determine areas exposed to waste discharge in order to protect posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows.
