Serge Telle, Minister of State, accompanied by Marie-Pierre Gramaglia, Minister of Infrastructure, Environment and Town Planning as well as Frédéric Van Heems, Managing Director of Veolia Eau France, and Olivier Grunberg, Deputy Chairman of the Société Monégasque des Eaux, on Tuesday, January 7, visited the Waste Water Treatment Plant (UTER), currently under construction to improve and increase the Principality’s water purification capacities.

The Monaco plant not only treats the Principality’s wastewater but also a wider catchment area including Beausoleil and part of the Cap d’Ail and Turbie areas. The plant is located in the heart of the Fontvieille district in the “Le Triton” building, an industrial building of ten levels, built in the immediate vicinity of the Urban and Industrial Waste Incineration Plant.

This equipment was made possible from the outset thanks to the development of wastewater treatment technologies combining compactness, efficiency and freedom from pollution.

As part of the renewal of the SMEAUX public service concession contract, signed in 2015, extension work had been planned on the UTER to increase its processing capacity by 30 percent and to cope with changes in flows of pollutants in the years to come.

This work required the removal of the two parking levels of the Triton and the installation of advanced and innovative technology called MBBR (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor). This biological treatment makes it possible to meet the most demanding discharge standards.

The safety aspect of the site was taken into particular account during all the work. In order to treat the volumes of additional stale air, activated carbon deodorisation was implemented. Although the site is 80 percent complete, the required purification performance has already been achieved in the majority of cases.

The completion of the works is estimated for the month of September 2020, ahead of the initial schedule set at the end of the year.

The project, costing €32 million, was funded half by the State and SMEAUX. This project is an important element of the Principality’s sustainable development policy. It is indeed important that the wastewater is treated in Monaco in the most efficient way, despite the space constraints in which the plant is located, a model of integration in an urban environment.

ORIGINAL SOURCE & PHOTO: Monaco Government Press Service