Located in the centre of the Liaoning province, Xinmin is a developing satellite city of Shenyang (a strong industrial base), which is about 60 kilometres away. Xinmin has a total population of 680,000 of which 120,000 live in the urban area.
The area is rich in underground water resources, which are replenished by the Liu River (a tributary of the Liao River) that flows through the city. These water resources originally have high concentrations of iron and manganese which exceeds the National Drinking Water Standard (NDWS) by eight to ten times and potentially threatens the health of the city residents if not treated adequately.
To address this issue, The China Water Company (CWC) and Xinmin Water Supply Company (XMWSC) formed a cooperative joint venture company (CJVC) in July 2000 to develop the Liu River Water Supply Project.
The project involved the digging of 10 new deep wells (80 metres in depth) along the Liu River bank; construction of a 4.5 kilometre raw water transmission pipeline and construction of a new 30 Mld water treatment plant incorporating iron and manganese removal to ensure that the treated water from the plant is in compliance with the NDWS.
- The Water Treatment Plant comprises:-
- Aeration
- Rapid Gravity Filtration (eight back-washable units)
- Chlorination
- Storage (two 3,000m³ tanks)
These new facilities were commissioned in December 2001. In 2002, CJVC acquired XMWSC’s assets, and subsequently entered an Entrust Agreement to provide quality downstream services including network maintenance, billing and collection and customer service to the end-users in the city.
Under the new operation arrangement, XMWSC is responsible for expanding network coverage and developing a cohesive leakage management plan aimed at significantly reducing non-revenue water levels.