To reduce the stink

The Thimphu city corporation plans to improve the sewerage treatment plants (STP) situation in Babesa areas with a simple technology.

The new areas which are of main focus are in Lungtenphu, Changbangdu, Semtokha and in the local area plans (LAP) in Babesa. The sewerage treatment plant has been handed over to the Asian development Bank (ADB) by the Thimphu City Corporation (TCC).

The project manager of the Asian development bank (ADB) Kinley Penjor said “We took this step because at earliest we got lots of complaints from the public about foul stink in the area. The second reason was the existing plant which has reached its designed capacity”.

The technology used for this project is the sequential batch reactor and the overall budget is US$ 14mn. It is expected that once the new plant is commissioned, the existing ponds will be decommissioned.

“It is a design-build contract. And whoever gets the tender will design it, build it, operate it and finally transfer it to the clients. And on top we have to build new plant to treat the garbage to take its own place,” he said.

The project has not started at the moment and the tender will be notified only in the month of September or by November within this year. The completion of this project will take around two and half years.

A volunteer from Canada, Nathan Chase, an environmental engineer also visited the site. After the case study of the plant he came up with two options to reduce the stink from the area.

The two options were to cover the main sheet (anaerobic ponds) and the second option was to cover the sheet with the hay which will divert the wind direction by fencing the bamboo mats.

After the case study conducted by Nathan Chase, the Corporation followed-up with the second option since the first option was ‘very expensive for the corporation to deal with’. And on top of that TCC had already planned to upgrade the existing plants to the mechanized system.

“So we thought it would be better we take the second option which we tested, where the results were also good. We continued the second option with the bamboo matting in the plant,” an engineer under the sewerage section, Samten Lhendup said.

The materials are all proclaimed and very soon the city corporation will start on the fencing works at the site.

 

Sonam Wangmo / Thimphu