A vital new drought resilience project for London
We’re proposing a new river abstraction on the River Thames, supported by water recycling.
The Teddington Direct River Abstraction (TDRA) project would provide up to 75 million litres of water each day during periods of prolonged dry weather.
We'll remove water from the river upstream of Teddington Weir, where it will then travel along a new pipeline. This will connect to an existing underground tunnel to our reservoirs, to become drinking water.
We'll replace the removed water with recycled water from Mogden Sewage Treatment Works in Isleworth. It will transfer to the river along a new underground pipeline to an outfall structure upstream of Teddington Weir.
This way, we’d be able to access additional supplies of water from the river, while maintaining river levels. This ensures the river environment and ecology are protected.
There would be rules governing when we can use the project. Typically, between late summer and late autumn, during periods of prolonged dry weather.
To keep the treatment facility in good working order at other times, we’d need to run water through it, at a low volume. This is called a “sweetening flow”.
Teddington Direct River Abstraction
Map key
- 1 = A new abstraction from the River Thames, upstream of Teddington Weir. A new intake would be built on the bank of the River Thames to take the water from the river.
- 2 = A short connecting pipeline would be built underground to move the abstracted water to an existing tunnel. And then on to storage reservoirs in the Lee Valley for treatment to become drinking water.
- 3 = The abstracted water would be replaced with highly treated water from a new water recycling facility. This would be located at Mogden Sewage Treatment Works.
- 4 = A new tunnel would be built to transfer highly treated water, from the new water recycling facility at Mogden to the River Thames.
- 5 = A new outfall structure, to discharge the recycled water, would be built on the banks of the River Thames.