Customer requirements

United Utilities is the UK’s largest listed water company. They own, operate and maintain utility assets, including water, wastewater, electricity and gas. They’re a FTSE 100 company with a turnover of £2 billion and see themselves as stewards of the natural resources in the North West of England, in the UK and across the world.

At the Cowm water treatment plant at their Watergrove Water Treatment Works, at Wardle near Rochdale; United Utilities needed to add Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC) to the water drawn from the Cown reservoir to neutralise a naturally occurring material known as Geosmin, which literally translates as ‘earth smell’. It is an organic compound produced by microbes and algae which gives untreated water a harmless yet undesirable earthy taste and aroma.