WET News

WN June 2017

Water and Effluent Treatment Magazine

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"A drawback of the slow sand ltration process is it needs a signi cant amount of land" Ryan Jackson, CDEnviro. P14-15 News+ Utility identi es the 'Magni cent Seven' bathing waters that will bene t from multimillion-pound funding to improve water quality. P4 Onsite: What happened when Severn Trent's Long Eaton treatment works' RGF process required a major overhaul? P10-11 Insight: Water treatment Much of modern life, especially its technology, is about speed. However, with climate change having a growing impact on our water – increasing the risks from disease-causing pathogens – is it time we renewed our interest in a slower technology? WET NEWS WATER AND EFFLUENT TREATMENT NEWS As the industry gears up for the next price review (PR19), asset management conference hears that operational resilience will be key. Resilience will be focus of PR19 but some risks will be di cult to measure JUNE 2017 Volume 23 • Issue 6 Severn Trent Water and preferred bidder JV part company "…if the industry does not increase expenditure then bursts, interruptions, flooding and pollution will happen more regularly" George Heywood, Servelec Technologies. P3. P4 British Water forms partnership for supply chain • nding B uilding resilience will be the big theme of the coming PR19 price review, but water companies will pursue di erent approaches to demonstrating and measuring it, industry • gures told the WWT Water Industry Asset Management conference last month. Operational resilience does not just mean assets that can cope with and recover from adverse events – such as ƒ oods, droughts and cyber attacks – but providing a water service to customers that shows "resilience in the round", David Black, senior director of Water 2020 at Ofwat, told the conference, which was held in Birmingham, and sponsored by AECOM and Technocover This means both planning for and anticipating risks, and containing the impact and restoring service quickly when they occur, he said. "Resilience is not preventing impact on customers of every bad thing, but predicting when those bad things might occur, preparing for them and being ready to respond," he said. The same was true of adverse events that would have an impact on ecosystems, he added. Mark Worsfold, director of asset management at South West Water, said that PR19 business plans would need to ensure resilience was prominent and that this would cover • nancial, corporate and operational resilience, although there would be most emphasis on the third of these. Floods and droughts would be the most high pro• le risks, where important metrics would include the level of storm rainfall assets can cope with, the number of days water storage in droughts, the duration of interruptions to supply and the proportion of supplies that rely on a single water source. However other risks are more di" cult to measure, and in any case it is di" cult to measure the response to an events that may not happen regularly, he said. "The problem with resilience is that we are talking about extreme events that don't happen very o– en. How do you measure your resilience against something that's so intermittent?" A lot of industry-wide work is being done in this area, by Ofwat's Resilience Task and Finish Group, by Water UK's 21st Century Drainage group and for environment metrics under Blueprint for Water, he pointed out. Andrew Dunbar, water strategy manager at Scottish Water, talked about how his company had built resilience into its 2015-21 business plan. He said that the process started by de• ning the risk appetite – for example, how many customers you might be willing to accept would be taken out of service by an event – a– er which you can assess the service impact of the risks and how the system pro• le might need to change. Research has shown that individuals believe that being cut o from water for 48 hours was the most they were willing to accept, a number which falls to 24 hours for a large community, he said. In 2015 only 15% of Scottish Water's customers could potentially be supplied by more than one water source, and the utility sees it as a priority to raise this proportion through investments such as the Ayrshire Resilience Scheme. However, Dunbar pointed out that however you build resilience, there is always a danger of unforeseen risks – for example, the collapse of a major A-road (the A93) in a storm in December 2015 cut o access to one of Scottish Water's treatment works, a risk that any assessment would have judged as negligible. "You might think that you have achieved resilience, but until you go back and test and have the bene• t of hindsight, you don't really know," said Dunbar. signi cant amount W ater industry trade association British Water has agreed an exclusive business services partnership with URICA that will help its members improve cash ƒ ow and grow their international business. URICA is a supply chain funding network developed for use by small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to address the problem of late payment within SME supply chains. URICA's online platform gives companies more control over their cash ƒ ow. British Water International director Lila Thompson said: "We want to increase the number of members exporting not only to traditional markets, but to new ones too. We were very interested to see what URICA could o er our members and we're delighted that they have agreed to an exclusive partnership in the water sector." S evern Trent Water has con• rmed it has parted company with the joint venture between Interserve and Kier. The JV was working on a £100M infrastructure deal as part of Severn Trent's £300M Birmingham Resilience project. However, reports suggest there has been disagreement over budget. In a statement, Severn Trent Water said: "Following extended negotiations with preferred bidder Interserve, and its subcontractor Kier Group, Severn Trent has decided to • nd a new way forward on the contract for the treated water contract on its Birmingham Resilience Project. A nity Water being sold o• for £1.6bn A " nity Water's owners have announced the sale of the water-only company for an expected value of £1.6bn, following a strategic review. Infracapital and Morgan Stanley Infrastructure signed an agreement to sell their 100% interest in A" nity Water Acquisitions (Investments) – which indirectly owns 90% of A" nity Water – to a consortium comprising Allianz Capital Partners, HICL Infrastructure Company and DIF. As part of the transaction, the buyers also acquire Veolia Water UK's 10% stake in A" nity Water. The consortium was advised by • nancial services company Nomura. Both transactions are expected to complete simultaneously in May 2017. A" nity Water chief executive Simon Cocks said: "As a business we will continue to operate as normal, focused on achieving our strategic objective to become the leading community focused water company in the UK. We look forward to welcoming our new investors to the company and continuing to deliver our enhanced business plan for our customers." A" nity Water is the UK's largest water-only supply company, by both revenue and population served. The company owns and manages the water assets and network in an area of approximately 4,515km2, split over three regions comprising eight separate water resource zones, in the southeast of England. The company is the sole supplier of drinking water in these areas. A" nity Water supplies, on average, 900 million litres of water a day to more than 3.6 million people. The • rm has committed £77M to its universal metering programme, £22M to achieve sustainable abstraction reductions and £63M for mains renewals and replacements. "Resilience is not preventing impact on customers of every bad thing, but predicting when those bad things might occur, prepar- ing them for and being ready to respond" David Black, Ofwat "The problem with resilience is that we're talking about extreme events that don't hap- pen very o– en" Mark Worsfold, SWW Floods and droughts would be high pro le risks

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