Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | AUGUST 2015 | 5 Polluters pay Firm fi ned for Manchester soda pollution Runcorn chemical firm Ineos ChlorVinyls Ltd has been fined £166,650 and ordered to pay £28,811.78 costs after admitting releasing caustic soda into the Manchester Ship Canal. The company was sentenced at Chester Crown Court following a prosecution by the Environment Agency. The incident occurred on January 17, 2012, when operatives were loading sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) onto a ship berthed in the Manchester Ship Canal; a filter lid blew off causing the spill. SWW in court over sludge leaks South West Water (SWW) has appeared before Exeter Crown Court for allowing sewage to escape from its Dunkeswell treatment plant in 2013. The case was brought by the Environment Agency (EA), which said sewage sludge had escaped from the site 13 times in one year; however, SWW admitted only five of the breaches. The case continues. Pollution by water companies falls The number of pollution events caused by water and sewerage companies in England has fallen for the second successive year, a report from the Environment Agency has confirmed. There were 2,358 pollution events (category 1 to 3) in 2014, and 61 serious pollution events (category 1 and 2). Both figures were an improvement on 2013, with the overall number of events falling for the second successive year. However the EA noted that the reduction follows a peak in incidents in 2012 and it expects further improvement in 2015. Water companies prepare competition approaches Bristol Water is set to gain only an additional £20M in wholesale expenditure from its review process with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the CMA has indicated with its interim report into the company's PR14 settlement. The water company will see its allowed wholesale cost expenditure increase from the £409M set by Ofwat in its † nal determination, to £429M under the CMA's provisional † ndings. This remains substantially lower than the £537M the water Water and sewerage companies in England are developing their strategies ahead of the opening of non-household retail competition in 2017 and are likely to pursue very diŒ erent approaches, research conducted by WWT's sister title Utility Week has revealed. The qualitative research, conducted in partnership with IT services company CGI, saw company bosses from water and sewerage companies quizzed about their strategy as they prepared for the opening up of the English non- household retail market. The † ndings showed that companies could be broadly divided into three groups. 'Aggressive players' see the market opening as an opportunity to grow their business. Likely to be established players in the Scottish market, these companies are willing to restructure to take advantage of the opportunities and expand VOX POP "Cooperation between our organisations will provide benefi ts to the UK supply and management chain when meeting the challenges of emerging trends." Tony Williams, British Water Chairman, on its deal with CIWEM "What's in place isn't anywhere near quick enough to cope [with a terrorist attack]. Those wishing to cause damage to our drinking water would laugh at our response." Craig Stanners, Director, IVL Flow Control "What we are doing is tiny in comparison to what the Victorians did, but in a way, this is allowing that legacy to live on." Simon Hinsley, Severn Trent, on the Birmingham Resilience Project (see p17). company set out in its † nal business plan. The CMA rejected "several requests" from Bristol Water to have its expenditure increased to fund various projects - including the proposals to build the Cheddar 2 reservoir - because they were not considered "fully justi† ed and in the interests of customers". The CMA's † nal determination on Bristol Water is due to be released on September 3. their market share. 'Defensive players' intend to focus on the retention of their existing customer base. They may expand by building on relationships with existing customers out of their area, but will have a cautious approach to new out-of-area relationships, dependent on a cost-bene† t analysis. Finally, 'non-players' intend to exit the non- household market. They will need to † nd buyers for their existing customer base, and while they look for buyers at the right price, they will need to defend their business and build value, meaning they may † nd themselves engaged in the market by default. Of the six water and sewerage companies involved in the research, three identi† ed themselves as aggressive players, two as defensive players, and one said they would be a non- player and intending to exit. Get the research at utility- week.co.uk/downloads Bristol Water to gain just £20M from CMA review

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