Environmental services for ENEL's Italian reservoir portfolio

Since 2008, URS has been providing a range of environmental consulting services at several hydropower reservoirs owned by Italy’s largest power company, ENEL.

URS is helping the client prepare a series of artificial basin Management Plans for their portfolio of reservoirs all over Italy, in accordance with national and regional regulations. These plans are a key component of Italy's water framework directive, and set out the actions required within each basin to achieve set environmental quality objectives.

As part of these objectives, a set of procedures is identified for the empty outs which are needed to perform periodical maintenance operations. URS performs water quality assessments, sediment characterisation and bathymetric surveys across ENEL's portfolio of Italian reservoirs. We are also conducting river quality assessments, including chemical analyses, benthos, diatoms and fish sampling, in line with these procedures.

Throughout the project, URS is supporting ENEL in their dealings with competent Authorities to obtain full regulatory compliance, which is a crucial element to allow them to perform the planned maintenance operations on the dams.

The project is scheduled to be completed in 2011.