Veolia and SADE have joined forces to provide an innovative and ethical solution to reusing treated wastewater to supply drinking water to districts in the department of Vendée.

Circular water recovery programme

Its aim is threefold:

• to provide an additional solution in areas with high demand in summer and where there is an imbalance in conventional resources,
• to operate a circular system of water use by sending treated wastewater to reservoirs rather than discharging it into the sea, and
• to validate the refining process to obtain very high-quality water and demonstrate its safety for the receiving environment.

Rather than being discharged into the Atlantic Ocean, part of the wastewater will be recovered on leaving the Petit Plessis treatment plant in Sables-d’Olonne and sent for further treatment in a refining plant.  This refined water will then be transported 25 km to the Jaunay dam, where it will be released into a vegetated area. This water will then join the river and slowly flow into the Jaunay reservoir. The water ends its circuit in the Jaunay drinking-water production plant, which makes it available for consumption by households.

An overall budget of €19.5 m over 10 years (see panel opposite)

Veolia capitalises on Group synergy

The Vendée Eau regional water authority selected Veolia (as part of a consortium with OTV and RVL) to design, construct and operate the refining plant. This facility will receive treated wastewater from the Sables d’Olonne treatment plant and subject it to 5 further purification stages to remove the salinity, microbiological compounds and micropollutants, such as pesticides, pharmaceutical or industrial compounds.