Water & Wastewater Treatment

NEWS Ofwat guidance 'bad news' for sustainability Water Minister joins IWEX panel Ofwat guidance on the next price review is "bad news for those seeking to modernise the water industry", says Steve Lindsey, chief executive of the West Midlands based innovation start-up, Lontra. The regulator's Setting price controls for 2015-20 – risk and reward guidance, published in January, has demanded that operators accept lower rates of return on equity and capital in the next five-year regulatory period. Lindsey says, "Ofwat, has impressed that companies should cap their weighted average cost of capital to no more than 3.85%. Whilst this is likely to create some challenges, we hope that this won't discourage investment in modernising and creating a more sustainable and robust infrastructure for the industry." Lonta's Blade Compressor won an innovation category at the Water Industry Achievement Awards last year. For the 2014 finalists, see page 25. To book a place at the ceremony on 1 April, visit WWTonline.co.uk. Water Minister Dan Rogerson will join a distinguished panel of industry experts looking back at 25 years of privatisation in England and Wales. Rogerson will join Ofwat chair Jonson Cox; former regulator Ian Byatt; Lord Moynihan, the minister in charge of water privatisation in 1989; and Wessex Water's Colin Skellett, the longest- serving chief executive in the sector, at the discussion at IWEX exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham on 2 April. WWT editor Natasha Wiseman said: "This is fantastic news. It will be one of the first opportunities for the industry to hear directly what the new minister has to say at this critical time for the UK water sector." The privatisation panel is one of several thought-leadership discussions taking place at IWEX this year, including sessions on retail competition, fracking and innovation. An enhanced portfolio of technical seminars, based on recent industry case studies, will also take place during the three- day event. The full seminar and keynote stage programme for the event is included in the IWEX Preview supplement, out with this issue. For more information on IWEX and the umbrella Sustainability Live event, and to register for free, visit www.sustainabilitylive.com. The seminar and keynote sessions at IWEX have been enhanced for 2014 Severn Trent fined for pipe failure The failure of a pipe from a treated reservoir is thought to have contributed to contamination of the water supply in the village of Broadway, Worcestershire, in November 2012. Severn Trent Water (STW) was hit with a £66k fine in January for the incident. It is thought the fractured pipe had allowed surface water run-off from the surrounding area, which included slurry from a cattle holding, to enter the system. Subsequent investigations by Severn Trent found E. coli and Cryptosporidium bovis in the water leaving the reservoir. A team of engineers worked around the clock for three days flushing out the water pipes for 72 hours at the time of the incident. The company said sewage had not entered the system. Coventry magistrates have fined STW £66,000 after the utility pleaded guilty to 11 counts of supplying water "unfit for human consumption". The Drinking Water Inspectorate brought the case after tap water in Broadway was found to be contaminated. 9 March 2014 Water & Wastewater Treatment wwtonline.co.uk Northumbrian Water (NW ) is undertaking one of the UK's largest ice-pigging projects through a deal with Morrison Utility Services (MUS). The £4M trunk-main cleaning contract forms part of NW's two- year Main Event programme of works, which will cover some 218km of water main in north-east England. The ice-pigging technique, which won Northumbrian Water the technology innovation category of the Water Industry Achievement Awards in 2009, will be delivered by ice-pigging specialist Aqualogy, a division of Spanish water group Agbar. It will be used on approximately 20km of trunk main. Due for completion in 2015, MUS says the deployment of ice -pigging technology on the programme provides Northumbrian Water with a cost- effective alternative to traditional pressure jetting techniques. Mike Harrison, executive director, MUS said, " The ice-pigging technology that we are deploying on this contract compares extremely well against more traditional network cleaning methods and will enable us to generate significant efficiency savings on our client's behalf, whilst ensuring reduced customer disruption and supply interruptions as enabling works are rarely required." UK's largest ice-pigging scheme underway Graham Neave, operations director, Northumbrian Water, and Matthew Stephenson, operations director, Aquaology, monitor ice entering a main during Northumbrian Water ice-pigging trials

• Cover