Report - The Edge, Manchester - May 2013.

[Ojay]

The Edge, Manchester

What we have here is a screened CSO housed above and within a large underground storm tank which outfalls into the River a short distance away

An interceptor sewer which serves the surrounding area enters through a 5ft RCP and runs underneath a screened overflow chamber and exits around 20 metres beyond the backside of the shit tank below

It's really hard to make out what is going on with the outgoing sewer due to the rising levels

It appears the trunk splits into two channels as it heads under the overflow weir, before heading downstream of a 20m x 10m (approx) shit tank supported by concrete columns and disappears or sumps out behind a curved wall ?

Above the sewer is a small screening chamber/processing room which is home to some 4m archimedes screw type machinery for filtering out the solids

The opposite side of a once barriered weir, below which a continuation of the sewer/shit tank

Any screened discharge from the sewer/shit tank exits via a 4ft stepped overflow via a concrete box a short distance to the River below

Well I said no more stooping and no more rain go in drains, it lasted 3 days

Myself and nickindroy had a chinwag about this place a while back and for one reason or another never got around to checking it out

We hastily met up after I had finished work it had been pissing down all day so was thinking more a recce as I turned up almost suited & booted

Like most of UU's assets in Manchester that have since been pikey'd, this place turned out to be no more of an exception either

The above ground lids are padlocked tight, the only liftable lid drops into a tank of arse soup breathing some dubious vapours; the once stainless ladders yoinked by Mr Thief!

The outfall is also locked and you might wonder how we even managed to get into the place


Mr Thief has been hard at work in here as ALL ladders, the stainless barriers from the weir and the stainless mesh from the screw have vanished


We probably spent about 15 mins in total and the levels continued to rise whilst we took turns in grabbing a few pics whilst watching the incoming sewer

Things appeared to be taking a turn for the worse, I decided to nip to the outfall for a rain check and sure enough it was bucketing down, also the concrete outfall was being lapped by the swollen River

We made an executive decision to GTFO, if not convinced I think the short clip further below says it all really

I will go back when there is no rain and take a proper set of gear for getting safely up and down into the shit tank..

(As there is no easy access down since the only set of ladders have been half inched and the manhole above is bolted shut)


In the meantime I'll stick these up, sorry the pics are a bit crap but it's understandable given the conditions...

The first sign something interesting lies beyond

4ft grilled outfall guarded by the only bit of metal the pikey's haven't had away

Main overflow from the screened CSO

Screening Chamber

Exhibits from today's overflow

(This fucker would have had my arm off if I was unlucky enough)

Incoming Interceptor

Outgoing Sewer/Shit Tank

GTFO

[video=youtube_share;YF0joBmB0po]http://youtu.be/YF0joBmB0po[/video]

It goes without saying we'll be back ​

 

[pastybarm]

This was the one that I mistakenly thought was North Bolton, but it is obviously too big for the area I had in mind. The manhole array (not sure if the right term?) and surrounding greenery look very similar though, which perhaps caused me to think it was the place in question, there was no big black vent pipe as I remember though, so it obviously is not.

 

[Nickindroy]

Just east of Manchester centre mate.

 

[pastybarm]

Cheers for the reply, I was miles off! I will have to have a mooch at the site in Bolton and see if it is a processor, was two big manhole lids joined together IIRC (that could be anything tho?), at the top of a steep hill, with a brook at the bottom.