Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1006919
www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | AUGUST 2018 | 5 EYE IN THE SKY: A drone has captured upgrade works at Southern Water's Scaynes Hill Wastewater Treatment Works in Sussex as part of an £8 million scheme. Improve- ments at the site, which currently serves around 38,000 customers, will enable it to cope with a growing population. The picture shows new equipment being winched into position at the site as part of the work to deliver a new sludge treatment process. United Utilities engineers in St Helen's, Merseyside, are working to create a new service reservoir within the footprint of two existing disused underground reservoirs. The plan is expected to help reduce construction costs by around 75 per cent compared with building a brand-new reservoir. The 32 ML new storage facility will serve 60,000 homes in the area. QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The report shows that nationalisation could be expensive for government and taxpayers, with the public potentially feeling the pinch in losses to their own savings and pensions." Water UK chief executive Michael Roberts on a report claiming nationalising English water companies would cost £182 billion Wessex Water has appointed Murphy as the principal contractor on a £45 million contract to construct the new North Bristol Relief Sewer. Murphy will construct approximately 5km of tunnel and over 1km of pipework that will pass through the Cribbs Causeway, Filton and Lawrence Weston areas. The route crosses several key transport assets and includes tunnelling under the M5 motorway and Network Rail's Henbury Loop. The project will create an increase in storage capacity ahead of future developments as well as reducing flooding risk within the existing network. 11 The number of category 1 pollution incidents attributable to the water sector recorded in 2017, according to the Environment Agency's annual Environmental Performance Assessment. The figure is an increase on 2016, when there were nine such incidents, and is the highest for five years. However, the total number of serious incidents was 52, down from 57 in 2016. 16 The number of consecutive days that the UK recorded heat of over 28 degrees centigrade during the heatwave in late June and early July. However, water resources remained 'generally healthy' and at the time of writing only United Utilities had imposed a hosepipe ban in mainland Britain. GOOD MONTH FOR... Northumbrian Water, which was voted the UK's top water company to work with by suppliers in the British Water 2018 annual performance survey. It is the seventh time in eight years that the North East water fi rm has topped British Water's annual list for supplier satisfaction. Northumbrian had an average overall score of 7.7 out of 10; South West Water and Anglian Water shared second place with an average of 7.1 apiece, while Scottish Water (5.8) and Southern Water (5.6) were the lowest rated water companies by suppliers. BAD MONTH FOR South West Water, which was criticised in the Environment Agency's annual Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) for its poor performance on environmental pollution. The fi rm was one of only two water companies to receive two stars in the assessment ('requires improvement'). "The continuing poor performance of South West Water is not acceptable," EA chair Emma Howard Boyd said in her commentary on the report. United Utilities, Wessex Water and Severn Trent were top on environmental performance, each being awarded four stars ('leading'). GETTING STARTED NUMBERS WHAT LIES BENEATH