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- Edinburgh Water Company and its successors have provided a public water supply and latterly sewerage and sewage treatment services to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh since 1819. The original company was established to supply drinking water and did so until 1870, when it was taken over by a public Water Trust, with representatives from Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello. That in turn was taken over by Edinburgh Corporation and in 1975, responsibility passed to the Lothian Regional Council, as did the duty to provide sewerage and sewage treatment services. Both services were moved out of local authority control, and taken over by the East of Scotland Water Authority in 1996. The three Scottish regional water authorities were merged to form Scottish Water in 2002. During the time of the Edinburgh Water Company and the Edinburgh Water Trust, major projects were carried out to construct reservoirs, some for the impounding of water supplies, and others to provide compensation water, to ensure that rivers could still provide water power to mills, when some of their sources had been tapped to supply Edinburgh. James Jardine was the company's first engineer, and was succeeded by James Leslie, who became part of J & A Leslie and Reid, when he entered into partnership with his son Alexander Leslie and son-in-law Robert Reid in the early 1870s. The last major project of this early period was Talla Reservoir, completed in 1905, but there were further civil engineering projects in the 1960s and 1980s. Alexander Leslie compiled a dosier of photographs, showing the construction of some of the later Victorian reservoirs, which has recently been rediscovered in the archives of Edinburgh Library. With the population growing rapidly, a major project to divert sewage away from the Water of Leith, the main river through the city, took place in 1864, probably with Napier Bell as the engineer. A new sewer intercepted the existing sewers and drains, and carried the raw sewage to the sea. Edinburgh did not have a sewage treatment works until 1978, when construction of Seafield Treatment Works on reclaimed land near Leith Docks was completed. It now produces 2.3 MW of electric power, generated from the gas which is a product of the sludge digesters which treat the effluent, and it is expected to become self-sufficient for power in the near future. (en)
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- Edinburgh Water Company and its successors have provided a public water supply and latterly sewerage and sewage treatment services to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh since 1819. The original company was established to supply drinking water and did so until 1870, when it was taken over by a public Water Trust, with representatives from Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello. That in turn was taken over by Edinburgh Corporation and in 1975, responsibility passed to the Lothian Regional Council, as did the duty to provide sewerage and sewage treatment services. Both services were moved out of local authority control, and taken over by the East of Scotland Water Authority in 1996. The three Scottish regional water authorities were merged to form Scottish Water in 2002. (en)
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