Thames Water Consultation on their Teddington Direct Water Abstraction Scheme
Thames Water says-We’re proposing a new river abstraction on the River Thames, supported by water recycling. This will help support London during periods of prolonged dry weather.
How the abstraction works
We’d remove water from the river upstream of Teddington Weir via a new intake. It would travel along a new pipeline connecting to an existing underground tunnel. This would flow up to 75 million litres of water each day to our reservoirs to become drinking water.
Water would be replaced with recycled water from Mogden Sewage Treatment Works. It would transfer to the river along a new underground tunnel to an outfall structure. This would be upstream of Teddington Weir.
By doing this, we’d be able to access additional supplies of water while maintaining river levels. This ensures the river environment and ecology are protected.
When the project would be operational
We’d only do this during droughts, which we estimate will happen roughly every two years. This is usually between late summer and late autumn. As part of this, we’d reach an operating agreement with the Environment Agency that would set out when we can use it.
OCPS' last Consultation response
'We are writing on behalf of the Old Chiswick Protection Society to object to the Thames Water's proposal to abstract clean water from the non-tidal Thames at Teddington and replace it in the tideway with 'sweetened' water from Mogden Sewage Treatment Works.
The Old Chiswick Protection Society represents the Old Chiswick Conservation Area.
This area is within the Borough of Hounslow. It lies between the Thames and the A4, and stretches to St Mary's Convent opposite Chiswick House to the West and the boundary with the Riverside Conservation area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It includes Chiswick Eyot .
In March 2023 we responded with an objection to your first consultation on ecological grounds. These haven’t changed. The scheme has the potential to cause changes to water temperature, flow and salinity and changes to freshwater and estuarine fish community structure, and migration patterns. This in itself would lead to threats to the future of riverine avian life , changing forever the ecological structure of the Thames .- essentially rendering it a lifeless river'.