Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | sepTember 2014 | 5 Polluters pay Waste discharges cost SWW £125K South West Water (SWW) has been fined £125,000 a er admitting four offences of discharging waste into three rivers outside Environment Agency (EA) permits from three different treatment plants in Devon. Paul Dunkels, QC also ordered SWW to pay £18,743 costs but said the company had been "negligent" rather than "reckless" in failing to ensure the plants were operating prop- erly. He agreed SWW had been trying to improve environmental standards and that because of the size of the business its 115 previous convictions were not an "aggravating factor". Scottish Water fined over chlorinated water discharge Alloa Sheriff Court has fined Scottish Water £6,500 a er pleading guilty to allowing chlorinated water to discharge from a reservoir into an Alva Burn, resulting in the death of more than 1,000 fish. Scottish Water staff were carrying out repair work nearby at the Alva Service Reservoir, and admitted to SEPA officers that the reservoir had been discharging chlorinated water into the burn. First Milk fined for effluent discharge Cumbrian creamery First Milk Cheese Company has been fined £1,750 by Carlisle Magistrates Court for discharg- ing trade effluent into the sewer with- out permission. The company pleaded guilty to a breach of the Water Industry Act 1991, and was also ordered to pay £7,200 costs. United Utilities (UU) had brought the prosecution a er its staff carried out an inspection near the food company's base in Aspatria. The effluent was wash water contain- ing whey and cleaning chemicals that got into the public foul sewer due to a damaged drain belonging to First Milk. Potential for 'more onerous' regime warns Ofwat South Staffs tops satisfaction table South Staffordshire Wa- ter has topped an annual customer satisfaction table published by industry regu- lator Ofwat for the second year in a row. The company achieved a service incentive mechanism (SIM) score of 89 to lead a 19-strong table of water suppliers in Eng- land and Wales. Anglian, Sembcorp Bourne- mouth and Wessex all In a letter to selected water company chief executives, Of- wat has expressed increasing concern over the reliability, accuracy and completeness of information and calculations submitted in revised busi- ness plans on June 27. It has warned that failure to rectify this may result in more oner- ous regulatory requirements for the AMP6 period. In the letter, dated July 30, Ofwat chief regulation officer Sonia Brown said: "We think this is of sufficient impor- tance for us to publicly raise concerns in your dra' deter- mination to be published on 29 August. I wanted to tell you this now because we consider these to be impor- tant issues that you need to address but we recognise the period between dra' deter- minations and the deadline for making representations on these (3 October) is tight." She outlined concerns over the calculations some companies had made and the financeability of the com- panies' plans. "Through the query process we have iden- tified substantive issues with the calculations underpin- ning your assessment of ac- tual and/or notional finance- ability... which raises serious VOX POP "The only thing that will remain constant in AMP6 is change, and I think it'll be quite a dynamic period, perhaps more so than the industry has ever experienced before." Scott Aitken, MD European Water Division, Black & Veatch (see p7) "In the future, should the worst happen, water companies would have the confidence that they have prepared processes to autonomously manage the event… whilst customers remain blissfully unaware such measures have been undertaken." Andrew Reeks, Business manager for the water sector Siemens Industry (see p11) "In a country where a reputed climate change sceptic can still get to be (albeit briefly) Secretary of State for the Environment, surely we need to have a more determined and revolutionary approach to adaptation measures?" Keith Hayward, National sales and marketing manager, Hydro International wastewater division (see p13) ranked joint second with scores of 87. The mean average SIM score rose year-on-year from 78.9 to 81.9, with some of the lowest ranking suppliers in last year's table achieving significant improvements in performance. Portsmouth was the most improved supplier with a score of 83 compared with 68 last year. Thames Water came last in this year's table but boosted its score from 62.9 to 71. Visit wwtonline.co.uk concerns over your board as- surance of financeability. "This reduces the weight that we can place on your assurance as a whole and makes interventions to the business plan more likely." She continued saying it was "not evident that your compa- ny has undertaken adequate and transparent assurance in line with our revised guid- ance". She warned that failure to meet licence obligations and Ofwat's regulatory reporting requirements could ultimately lead to a significant financial penalty being imposed. "If your company fails to demonstrate a strong track record of consistently meeting your obligations, including ob- ligations to provide us with re- liable, accurate and complete information, we may need to consider how this influences the way we monitor your com- pliance during the forthcom- ing regulatory period. "Consistent with a pro- portionate and risk based ap- proach, we may put in place more onerous regulatory re- porting requirements and/or a more onerous assurance re- gime from 2015-16 for compa- nies where concerns remain at Final Determination." Visit wwtonline.co.uk

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