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Over 50% of the drinking water for Scotland’s Capital City,
Edinburgh, is supplied through the 38-mile-long Talla Aqueduct
from the Talla Reservoir in the Scottish Borders to
Fairmilehead Water Treatment Works in Edinburgh. This amounts
to more than 33 million U.S. gallons of raw water every day.
Incredibly this massive structure and its associated reservoir
were built over 100 years ago, beginning in 1895, and opened
less than 10 years later in 1905. Its construction was a
tremendous undertaking as, even today, many sections through
open moorland are inaccessible by road.
After more than 90 years of this exposure, the overall
concrete structure had stood up remarkably well and is a
credit to the Scottish engineers of the last century. However,
the weather had taken its toll in several areas—particularly
due to freeze thaw attack on the externally exposed sections.
The combination of these problems combined with local ground
movement and landslides over the years, had created some
potentially serious structural problems—with cracks through
the roof allowing external water ingress to the aqueduct and
cracks through the concrete and stonework allowing increasing
amounts of valuable raw water leakage from the aqueduct. This
leakage was causing further damage to the structures.
The extensive repairs required on this project were completed
on time in April 1998 and within the budget of approximately
$2.5 million U.S.
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