WET News

4 WET NEWS january 2015 News+ Government earmarks £2.3bn nding for flood risk management • Trade body claims the funding fails to address the challenges of climate change and major flooding. T he government is to spend £2.3bn over the next six years on more than 1,400 flood and coastal erosion projects, the Treasury has announced. The projects to be allocated funding, including the Thames Estuary (£196M) and the Humber Estuary (£80M), will reduce current risk levels in England by 5% by 2021. The funding, which the gov- ernment said will help avoid more than £30bn in economic dam- ages, will reduce flood risk for 300,000-plus households, on top of the 230,000 homes already pro- tected since 2010. According to the Environment Agency (EA), more than five million properties in England are at risk of flooding and in excess of 200 homes could be lost due to coastal erosion. The programme of flood and coastal defence improvements comprises schemes developed and promoted by local authori- ties, internal drainage boards and EA. Major construction projects with transformative potential for NEED TO KNOW In 1953 flooding killed 2,100-plus people, while the coastal flood in 2013 was larger in size but resulted in no loss of life The national audit Office stated that over the past five years maintenance funding has fallen by 6%in real terms Funding would need to increase by £20M plus inflation annually for the next 25 years to keep pace with the combined effects of asset deterioration and climate change The Environment agency now had 800 fewer flood risk management staff than in 2010-11, including in asset management and incident control Only a quarter of flood defences are being maintained fully, says the Committee on Climate Change towns, cities and districts will help communities affected by last winter's flooding such as Boston in Lincolnshire, Hull, and Yalding in Kent. In the Lower Thames, Oxford, Somerset, Lowesto—, and the Humber major new strategic plans to alleviate risk will be progressed. The EA will put in place an GOOD MONTH BAD MONTH Thames Water announced a 5.5% increase in operating profit to £367.6M for the six months ending September 2014. Smart water networks company i2O Water has secured additional funding of £8M to expand its r&D activities in Southampton. Thames Water was fined £300K over the death of a worked killed by a revers- ing excavator at treatment works in Walthamstow in april 2010. a fire at a desalination treatment plant left Maldives capital city Malé without drinking water for several days. ambitious set of improvements to deliver new ways of working, transform relationships between communities, risk management authorities and their suppliers, and maximise the benefits which can be delivered. This plan will deliver efficiency savings of at least 10%, which will be rein- vested to allow more projects to go ahead. The savings will be achieved through: • More packaging of work to enable suppliers to reduce costs • Improved contracting approaches • Innovation and value engineering • Greater standardisation • Streamlining Between 2010 and 2015, the government has spent more than £3.2bn on flood risk management compared £2.7bn in the previous five years. However, CIWEM said the gov- ernment's Autumn Statement had CONTRACT WINS • Amey has been awarded the contract for affinity Water's network Infrastructure Mainte- nance agreement. The five-year contract, worth £129M will see amey delivering metering installations and planned and reactive maintenance for affinity Water. • GBV, the joint venture comprising Galliford Try and Black & Veatch, has been contracted by the Environment agency to carry out a major flood risk appraisal study for the river Thames Scheme. The work encompasses many areas affected by major flooding in the winter of 2013-14. • Glasgow-based civil engineering firm rj McLeod has won the main construction work contract for a £31.4M flood defence scheme at Selkirk in the Scottish borders. The company is one of six firms that were invited to tender for the mains work contract. • Engineers trial of sewage treatment works shutdown strategy becomes reality to replace a faulty valve. Shutdown strategy saves time and money A way to shutdown an entire sewage treatment works without using storm facilities has been devised by a Costain team working at Severn Trent Water's Stratford Milcote facility. The strate- gy was developed and trialled while the team installed a new inlet works with associated screens and han- dling at the sewage treatment works. Tom Grainger-White, Costain senior site agent, said the strategy reduces risk and saves money. He said: "Traditionally when a treat- ment works is shutdown, foul water is transferred to tankers and then transported to other sites. By com- piling information such as how wastewater flowed between the 15 pump stations that fed the site, and carrying out tests to check those interactions, we were able to turn off individual stations. "This allowed us to increase the time we could turn off the main treatment works, and so no tankers were required." Costain said the strategy proved its worth when a faulty valve was discovered at the Paddock Lane pump station near the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon. Grainger-White said: "Paddock Lane is a very large pumping sta- tion, it's in a residential area and is almost impossible to tanker from. But the three trials we carried out at the Stratford Milcote scheme were enough to convince everyone that STW could perform shutdowns fur- ther up the network and so safely replace the valve." Mick Jones, STW service delivery manager for Stratford, added: "We had carried out full shutdowns on Costain's scheme at Stratford Mil- cote, but not at Paddock Lane and not for this type of work." Using the information gathered, the team replaced the faulty valve the next day. The work cost £35,000 less than if over-pumping was used. The government has spent more than £3.2bn on flood risk between 2010 and 2015, compared with £2.7bn in the previous five years www.teekaycouplings.com tel: +44 (0)1494 679500 done nothing to address the real and sustained levels of funding that will be required if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and the major flooding we see on an almost annual basis. Greater investment in river main- tenance was needed. Annual maintenance of rivers - such as maintaining existing cru- cial defences, weed and vegeta- tion trimming and silt removal - are essential activities that have been cut to the bone through sev- eral decades of spending cuts. The continuation of this policy will result in ongoing degrada- tion, which will then cost a great deal more to restore. CIWEM rivers & coastal treas- urer Jed Ramsay said: "Failure to maintain our existing flood defences and invest sustainably and sensibly in new flood risk schemes will lead to continued loss of life and property, extensive damage to the UK economy and ongoing misery for millions of people." "The funding, which the government said will help avoid more than £30bn in economic damages, will reduce flood risk for 300,000-plus households, on top of the 230,000 homes already protected since 2010" Balmoral leads tank design B almoral Tanks is a leading European tank design and manufacturing company producing what is believed to be the most comprehensive range of tank products available from a single source in the world. Anaerobic digestion, biofuel, biomass, wastewater treatment, desalination, civil engineering, firefighting, potable / non-pota- ble water and drainage are all key sectors for the company. Balmoral Tanks also offers a wide range of associated techni- cal services including installa- tion, inspection, repair and maintenance.

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