Chennai: Treated, used water flows into Porur lake

CHENNAI: The Metrowater authorities have quietly achieved a great feat. Using an ultrafiltration system, it has tertiarily treated eight million litres of secondary wastewater at its Nesappakkam plant and is releasing it into the Porur Lake. Releasing treated wastewater into waterbodies has multiple environmental benefits.
It compensates for the evaporation loss; it helps recharge the groundwater table in and around the lake; and, it also helps in streamlining the process required to reduce pollution in rivers and lakes. A senior executive engineer from Metrowater said ultra filtration is a pressure driven membrane separation process that removes suspended particulate matters from water, making it safe.
It also removes dissolved compounds from the waste water, he said. The treated water from the Nesappakkam treatment plant travels 9 km through pipelines before getting discharged into Porur lake.