Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1144867
Dr Phil Aldous has joined AECOM as a technical director for environment and ground engineering in the UK and Ireland. With over 30 years' experience, he will focus on ensuring AECOM's environmental and sustainability expertise is embedded and applied when delivering client solutions to the water industry and regulators. Principal consultant Paul Rutter has joined Stantec's business consultancy team in the UK to lead innovation and develop digital services for its clients. Joining from Thames Water, Stantec described Rutter as passionate about delivering innovation, change and data-led insights for business improvement. Robert Light has been appointed the new chair of the Consumer Council for Water. The former Environment Agency board member has been appointed for a period of three years until June 2022 and succeeds Alan Lovell, whose term as chair of the independent water consumer body for England and Wales came to an end in the spring. PEOPLE MOVES www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | AUGUST 2019 | 5 QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The situation is never black and white. However, there's no getting away from the fact that performance in 2018 was simply unacceptable." Environment Agency chair Emma Howard Boyd a er the regulator published its 2018 environmental performance report for England's WASCs (see page 29 for further information) Innovate East 10-12 September, 2019 Trinity Park, Ipswich innovateeast.org.uk Anglian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water combine for a three-day event exploring four key themes: natural capital, social purpose, digital twins and leakage. WWT Water Scotland Conference 2019 2 October, 2019 Crown Plaza, Glasgow event.wwtonline.co.uk/scotland Hear where Scottish Water will be investing in SR21 and the latest innovations, infrastructure projects and sustainable growth plans for water in Scotland. WWT Drinking Water Quality Conference 2019 27 November, 2019 Hilton Birmingham Metropole event.wwtonline.co.uk/drinking An essential event for water quality professionals seeking innovative solutions to the regulatory and technical challenges facing the industry. Southern Water has agreed to pay £126 million in penalties and payments to customers following serious failures in the operation of its sewage treatment sites and for deliberately misreporting its performance. An Ofwat investigationfound that Southern failed to operate a number of wastewater treatments works properly, including by not making the necessary investment that led to equipment failures and spills of wastewater into the environment. The company also manipulated its wastewater sampling process, which resulted in it misreporting information about the performance of a number of sewage treatment sites. Southern Water will pay a rebate of £123 million to customers through their bills and a fine of £3 million. The rebate includes £91 million in penalties that Southern Water had avoided and a further £32 million of payments as recognition of their serious failures. Proportionate to the size of the business, this package of penalties and payments is the biggest Ofwat has ever imposed. Ofwat said the amount would have been larger had Southern Water not co-operated with its investigation, addressed its failings and agreed to this payment package. "What we found in this case is shocking. In all, it shows the company was being run with scant regard for its responsibilities to society and the environment," Ofwat chief executive Rachel Fletcher said. "It was not just the poor operational performance but the co-ordinated efforts to hide and deceive customers of the fact that are so troubling. The previous management failed to stamp out this behaviour and failed to manage its plants properly. "In doing so, Southern Water let down its customers and operated in a way completely counter to the public service ethos we expect. "That is why the company deserves such a significant sanction. We also think it is important Southern Water has a formal fine on their record for this serious breach." Southern, which appointed Ian McAulay as its new CEO in January 2017, expressed support for the investigations and said it was pleased to agree the payment package. The Environment Agency has undertaken a separate criminal investigation, which began in 2016, into suspected permit breaches at a number of Southern Water's sites. In its 2018-19 annual report, the company also revealed it is subject to an ongoing DWI investigation, partly in relation to "historic issues regarding our performance reporting". CONTRACT WINS Severn Trent has revealed the contractors to have secured a place on its MEICA-led capital delivery build- only framework for AMP7, with Barhale & Doosan Enpure JV, Coffey Construction, Eric Wright Water, FLI Water and Glaswell & Last, J.N. Bentley, Kier Integrated Services and nmcn having been successful. Severn Trent has already announced its capital delivery design-and-build and civils-led capital delivery build-only framework partners but has yet to announce details of its ICA-led framework. Costain has been appointed as sole maintenance service provider by United Utilities across its operations under a framework contract for an initial period of five years with an option to extend to 10 years. This contract marks the first time United Utilities has outsourced its maintenance activity, with Costain providing overall management and delivery of larger-scale water and wastewater asset maintenance activities across the entirety of the network. Enisca Browne has announced that it has secured extensions to its minor and intermediate non- infrastructure frameworks with South East Water through to the end of AMP7. Formed in 2015 to deliver non-infrastructure and MEICA contracts to the UK water sector, Enisca Browne has brought together the skills of parent companies Enisca and J Browne. COMING SOON SOUTHERN WATER TO PAY £126M FOLLOWING OFWAT INVESTIGATION