LIFE-TREASURE
Treatment and re-use of urban stormwater runoff by innovative technologies for removal of pollutants

Current status of the ponds ( 8 June 2010).
The monitoring programme has been completed and a report documenting the obtained treatment efficiencies has been published. A number of reports, papers and technical documents produced during the project are public available and can be downloaded from the table at the bottom of this page.

The LIFE-TREASURE project has selected as being among the 23 best EU LIFE-Environment projects completed in 2009-2010.

Silkeborg:	Århus:	Odense:

The purpose of The TREASURE project was to implement and demonstrate technologies that can efficiently reduce diffuse urban pollutant loads onto receiving waters. Focus has been on the removal of phosphorous, a macronutrient largely responsible for eutrophication of lakes and inland costal waters, and on toxic substances (heavy metals and organic micropollutants).

As part of the project, 3 wet detention ponds for treating stormwater runoff was constructed. The ponds were constructed with filtration and absorption units for enhanced removal of small particles and colloidal and soluble bound pollutants. In addition, the ponds were equipped for on-line monitoring of the treatment performance. The facilities are located in Silkeborg, Århus and Odense, Denmark.

It was considered essential that the treatment facilities were constructed as natural and recreational elements in the form of semi-natural lakes that in a positive way contributes to an improved urban environment. The monitoring programme has demonstrated how the simple and cheap treatment concept of semi-natural lakes extended with filtration and absorption is robust, and even for large storms following long droughts are able to maintain excellent treatment performance.

Table 1 Public available documents.