Flood in Chennai has exposed us to an unsafe practice followed by builders when it comes to sewage treatment plants, where most of the plant machinery got flooded to the extent many of these STPs would take a long time to be revamped for operations. The main reason for these plants to be flooded is the lack of safety considerations during their design.

MEP consultants and designers have not foreseen such floods during the design as STPs are anyway considered to be something that should be kept out of sight from the residents and as hidden as possible, so for them it was best to keep the plant underground where all machinery are kept in difficult to access conditions. An operator who has to spend the entire day working in highly humid, smelly, and very unpleasant conditions in these underground plants. Most of the plants in the city have ignored safe operating conditions in these STPs.

During the 2015 floods, Chettinad Green Villas had a plant that was destroyed by the flood then, and the community started looking for a plant that would survive a flood in the future. They approached EcoTec and had the following to be addressed,

1.      The STP should survive another flood

2.      Should have a minimum dependency on the operator

3.      Should not have noise that would disturb the neighboring houses and community

EcoTec has always insisted to customers on maximum operational safety and has all their STP designs where all the electro-mechanical parts are above the high water level. So, it was easy to design a plant for Chettinad green villas. This plant was unaffected by the recent December 5th, 2023 flood and EcoTec is willing to support other communities with improving their vulnerable STPs.

Many plants survived the plant in Perumbakkam, Madipakkam, and OMR that followed the EcoTec designs.

EcoTec will be happy to discuss plant redesign and also there is a rental option to choose from with full automation of the plant operations.