Scottish Water is about to start the final stage of its near £7.5m investment to provide clearer, fresher drinking water to more than 20,000 customers in the Dunoon and Cowal area.

A £3.5m project to upgrade the Loch Eck Water Treatment Works (WTW) is about to be completed and we will soon start the final phase of our £3.9m project to improve 27 miles of mains in the distribution network served by the WTW.

The combined investment will substantially reduce the potential for manganese going through the network. Manganese is a naturally occurring substance and is no risk to public health at the levels which have been recorded in the area in the past.

The project at the WTW involved the installation of a manganese removal plant to provide an effective barrier to manganese from entering the network.

The WTW is now successfully removing manganese to levels well within the regulatory standards. As a result of this, the final cleaning of the water network will begin on July 23.This will comprise about six weeks of cleaning, with the work being done at night to minimise inconvenience.

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Most of the work on the network of pipes, which started in June last year and is being carried out for Scottish Water by contractors George Leslie, has been completed. This included the replacement or relining of mains

The remaining work on the mains will involve further cleaning of the pipes. This work was timed to be carried out after the WTW started successfully removing manganese.

Scottish Water’s investment at the WTW and in the network of distribution pipes – which was required by the Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland -- will benefit customers throughout the supply zone in Dunoon and areas such as Sandbank, Hunter’s Quay, Kirn, Toward, Kilmun, Ardentinny, Strachur and St Catherine’s.

Mr Jim Hassan, Scottish Water’s water operations manager, said: “We have improved the water quality in recent years. The investment at Loch Eck WTW to tackle manganese is delivering further improvements at the point where the water enters our system and the final phase of the cleaning or flushing will complete our work on the network and help ensure customers enjoy clearer, fresher drinking water for years to come.”

The final stage of cleaning will start from July 23 in Strachur, Leanach and St Catherines and will continue there until August 1.

The programme will then continue in the Sandbank area from August 1-7 and then across Dunoon from August 7-29. When the work in Dunoon is complete it will move to Toward for two days on August 29-31 and finish at Kilmun after one day’s work on September 3-4.

To minimise any inconvenience to customers, each day of work will start at 10pm and will be completed by 6am the following day. We will not carry out the cleaning work at the weekends, so the first work on a Monday will start at 10pm and the last work on a Friday will be finished by 6am.

(GK)