Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | DECEMBER 2014 | 5 Polluters pay Southern Water hit by £500K fine Southern Water has been fined £500,000 a er a failure at a pumping station near Swalecliffe in Kent resulted in a brook being polluted by sewage. In a hearing at Canterbury Crown Court, the company pleaded guilty to breaching an environmental permit in relation to the pollution in Swalecliffe Brook on 21st July 2013. Brook Road Pumping Station, which receives wastewater from the local area and pumps it to Swalecliffe Wastewater Treatment Works, suffered a pump failure a er one pump became blocked with debris. The company's control room received an alert flagging up the problem, but these were misinterpreted and a response was arranged for the following day, rather than immediately. More than 100 fish and eels died because of the pollution. Brick firm pays for quarry spill A Staffordshire firm has been fined £27,000 and ordered to pay more than £6,500 in costs a er admitting polluting a brook with clay material from a quarry. Ibstock Bricks (1996) Limited pleaded guilty to the charge of breaching an en- vironment discharge consent in relation to the incident in August last year. The firm, based in Newcastle-under- Lyme, operates its Knutton Quarry site with an environmental discharge consent from the Environment Agency. However, in August 2013 an equipment failure meant that the clay material from the site poured into Silverdale Brook (also known locally as Lyme Brook), causing visible pollution in a 3.5km stretch of the watercourse. The com- pany reported the spill to the Environ- ment Agency and co-operated with the subsequent investigation. Farmer fined for veg waste in river A farmer from County Down has been fined £6,000 for polluting the River Enler in Comber, Northern Ireland, with vegetable processing waste. Robert Martin Hamilton was fined £2000 for each of the three offences, which took place between summer 2013 and March 2014. One in five UK bathing waters would fail stricter EU standard EA completes dredging of Somerset Levels rivers The Environment Agency has completed the dredging of the rivers Parrett and Tone on the Somerset Levels, a key element of its response to last year's floods in the area. The agency has removed 130,000 cubic metres of silt in seven months of work, which began in March and was completed on schedule at the end of October. The dredging project, which cost £6M, con- centrated on a 8km stretch of the two rivers near Burrow- bridge. It will help reduce the likelihood and duration of Almost all UK bathing waters have met the current Euro- pean mandatory standard but one in five would fail the new, higher quality measure which is set to be enforced from 2015, government figures have shown. A report from the Depart- ment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has found that 610 out of 615 UK beach- es – or 99.2 per cent - passed the mandatory standards of the European Bathing Water Directive for 2014. All 15 sites designated as inland bathing waters also passed this stand- ard, which is based on E.coli limits in the water sample. However, only 477 beaches – or 78.2 per cent – passed the 'guideline' standard which will be used for compliance with the more stringent ver- sion of the directive which will be implemented from 2015. The majority – 9 out of 15 – of inland bathing waters also failed this mark, which places a limit on intestinal en- terococci as well as E.coli. The 'guideline' standards VOX POP "There is a view by some that PR14 is a one-off correction, a er which there will be a return to 'easier' times. I want to make clear right now that this is not the case." Cathryn Ross, Chief Executive, Ofwat "I don't know how much the water industry will use the power of data. But I do know we shouldn't dismiss this amazing new set of tools which could create significant value enhancing products." Ajay Nair, Technical Director, MWH "This new approach of delivering SuDS through the planning system will likely see them delivered more quickly, which is positive, but not automatically to a high standard." Sam Ibbott, Deputy Public Affairs Director, Environmental Industries Commission (EIC) flooding on Curry Moor and North Moor, on the A361 and the West Coast mainline. The dredging is the first phase of a 20-year flood ac- tion plan for Somerset drawn up by Somerset County Council. On average, the river channels are a third wider af- ter the work; much of the silt removed during the process was donated to local farmers for use on their land. The Environment Agency is now working with the Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium and the contrac- tor, Land and Water Services, to share lessons learnt from the project, which has also seen river banks repaired at Langport and Cocklemoor. have been measured since 2012 in order to create a four- year data set for use when the stricter directive is enforced next year. The findings repre- sent a slight decline from last year when 81.3% of beaches passed the guideline stand- ard, although year-on-year comparisons are always af- fected by variance in weather conditions. The Anglian region had the cleanest coastal bath- ing water with 90% compli- ance, while Wales (88%) and the South West (84.5%) also performed well against the guideline. The North West of England (37%) and Scotland (55.6%) had the worst level of guideline compliance. Bathing water compliance has improved steadily since 1988, helped by improve- ments to the sewerage system by water companies. Bath- ing water conditions are now strongly linked to wet weather because spills from combined sewer overflows (CSOs) occur during heavy rain. wwtonline.co.uk

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