Water purification and water distribution

With our Dutch roots, we know exactly how to fight against and for the water. In fact, the Netherlands is known worldwide as a country with extremely high drinking water quality. The quality requirements for tap water in our country are laid down in the Drinking Water Act and the Drinking Water Decree. For example, we have established standards for the permitted concentration of certain substances in drinking water, including nitrate, copper and lead.

Abroad, the drinking water quality is not always sufficient. In some countries people have to walk miles every day to collect clean drinking water. They are sometimes even forced to get their drinking water from a polluted river.

This is why we provided large water purification installations, distribution pipes and house connections on our projects in Sri Lanka, Gambia and Ghana. As a result, we have already provided thousands of people with clean drinking water.

At the Hemmathagama project in Sri Lanka, we provide 17,000 families in seven villages with clean drinking water. Ballast Nedam is responsible for arranging financing, the management during the entire project and the knowledge and expertise. A large part of the implementation is done by local forces and subcontractors. This makes it possible to create employment opportunities in the region.

We are constructing a water purification installation and we are connecting it to a completely new pipeline network no less than 111 kilometers of pipelines. We get the water from a lake in the mountains, at an altitude of about 700 meters. Our research showed that the water was reasonably clean, except for being mixed with sand. Yet the river water in the seven villages was seriously polluted. In the villages, the water served not only as drinking water, but also as a sewer and a place to do the laundry. Due to the construction of the water treatment plant and the pipeline network, the families no longer have to drink from the polluted river.

Due to the differences in height, the water supply can make use of gravity for distribution. No water pumps are required. This not only makes it cheaper, but also minimises the impact on the environment.

Each village will have its own tank with about 1.5 thousand cubic meters of clean drinking water. From the tank we will build a local distribution network that will reach the 17,000 houses. When a tank threatens to become empty, the floats on the tanks ensure that new water is supplied from the water treatment plant. In this way, the water continues to flow through the pipes continuously.

Ballast Nedam offers great added value to these projects because we can help our client in getting the financing in place. This is convenient, as we regularly work for water purification and water distribution in poorly developed areas where the financial resources are not always sufficient. That is why we prefer to be involved from the start. Our client is usually the local government. We arrange the financing for them, after which the government can introduce a payment system and initiate the repayment.

Employment opportunities and training: This is how we help other countries move forward

Getting clean drinking water increases the quality of life in the regions in which we work. But it doesn't stop there. With these projects we create employment opportunities because we engage local subcontractors for part of the installation. We also hire as many local employees as possible in our own on-site teams. And we get a large part of the purification technology from Belgium.

During our projects we train the locals so that they can do the maintenance and operation of the water treatment. As a result, we work on an impact that lasts.