Work on a £16 million water treatment works upgrade project in Renfrewshire is now complete.

The scheme at Muirdykes Water Treatment Works (WTW) involved installing a new filtration building and process at the WTW near Howwood.

The project was carried out by contractors Black & Veatch and will reduce the risk in the network of discoloured water caused by naturally-occurring manganese.

The new secondary stage filtration process will remove oxydised manganese from the system before it goes into the supply zone and will be housed in a single-storey building built on the site of the WTW.

It follows a £4m investment four years ago on more than 100 miles of water mains affected by discoloured water in Renfrewshire and the installation of a Wears Resmix system at Barcraigs reservoir in 2012.

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Iain McMillan, Scottish Water's senior project manager, said: "These improvements in the past few years have helped to tackle the problem of manganese and discoloured water in the Muirdykes WTW supply zone although they were unable to eliminate the risk, as we saw in August 2016 when there was discoloured water in some parts of the network.

"The completion of this most recent major investment at the WTW, and the installation of a new filtration process, will improve the robustness of our system and further reduce the risk of manganese and discoloured water in the longer-term."

Joanna Peebles, Scottish Water's regional community manager for the area, added: "Scottish Water aims to provide continuous clear and fresh drinking water to all our customers, wherever they live.

"While we cannot guarantee there will be no recurrence of manganese and discoloured water in the Muirdykes network, our upgrade of the WTW, in addition to the previous investment, will substantially reduce the risk and we know this will be welcomed by our customers in Renfrewshire."

(LM/MH)