Pumps Prove to be Smooth Operators for English Water Company

“SAS (surplus activated sludge) is a bit weird and can do odd things,” says Stuart Chatten, lead bioresources technician at Whitlingham Water Recycling Center (WRC), one of Anglian Water’s principal centers for processing sewage, serving a population of 400,000. Those weird and odd things — including a thickness that can often prevent it from moving down pipelines like water or normal sludge — means that it can stubbornly stick, causing pumps to run dry, backing up tanks. Understandably, the handling of SAS at Whitlingham wasn’t top of the favorites list for maintenance teams. Well, that’s just how things were until recently at Whitlingham WRC, where SAS was constantly winning the battle versus