South Elmsall wastewater wetland project donates plants to North Yorkshire charity
As Yorkshire Water’s South Elmsall wastewater treatment works wetland project nears completion, the utility has donated some of the plants from its ‘nature-based solution’ to another in North Yorkshire.
The donation from the Wakefield project will go to the Howardian Hills National Landscape – which is situated between the North York Moors National Park, the Yorkshire Wolds and the Vale of York.
The new South Elmsall wastewater wetland is a nature-based solution designed to treat storm flows during heavy and prolonged rainfall.
The wetland project has already helped to reduce storm overflows discharging into Frickley Beck.
The series of interconnected ponds have been planted with 220,000 plants that treat parts of diluted storms and wastewater as it travels through the wetland.
Construction partners, Eric Wright Water, are nearing completion of the nature-based solution, that provides both a sustainable and energy-efficient way of treating water and biodiverse habitat – attracting a wide range of wildlife such as bees and other pollinators, breeding birds, amphibians and reptiles.
Adam Tunnicliffe, nature-based solutions project manager at Yorkshire Water, said: “Yorkshire Water is actively implementing nature-based solutions to find green solutions for wastewater treatment, flood management and increasing biodiversity.
"South Elmsall is one of our flagship works, as well as Ilkley, Clifton and Clayton West, to adopt this low-carbon, climate-resilient alternative to wastewater treatment.
“Following the successful bedding in of over 200,000 wetland plants, we were keen to find a good home so that nature-based benefits can be extended.
"We are very pleased to donate a large number of aquatic bunches of bare root plants, Lillies and plug plants to Howardian Hills National Landscape’s ‘Forgotten Flora’ project”.