WET News

2 WET NEWS AUGUST 015 COMMENT "If there were suitable alternatives, I'd like to think they were given consideration AUGUST £7M Scottish Water is working on a new sewer tunnel beneath Glasgow's Yoker area. The £7M project comprises the construction of two new combined sewer overflows with powered screens. Duncan Wildgoose is now business development director at FLI Water, which provides wastewater technology, in-house offsite fabrication and M&E services. He was business development manager at Imtech Water, Waste & Energy. Civil engineering costs fell 1.4% in the ' rst three months of 2015 compared with the previous quarter, and by the same amount compared with a year earlier, according to the latest report from RICS' Building Cost Information Service. The report also expects tender prices to rise by 4.3% between the ' rst quarter of 2015 and that of 2016. A 4.8% rise is forecast for the following year. 1.4% 4.3% £26bn Twenty-eight programmes and one project in the water sector worth more than £25.6bn are detailed in the government's latest National Infrastructure Plan (NIP). Flood defence programmes and projects in the NIP pipeline total £3.5bn. 39Mt The amount of untreated sewage that enters the tidal River Thames every year. This could reach 70Mt if nothing is done about it "A robot to drill and fix to the underside of slabs, for example, would eliminate a lot of work at height in dusty, noisy environments" Sam Stacey, of Skanska UK, on getting £700K funding for the FRAMBE robot project "There is compelling logic in bringing together our two independent bodies" CIWEM chairman Jim Oatridge, OBE, on the news that CIWEM and British Water are in talks to develop a closer working relationship. 450 The number of 'Aquanaut' engineers being trained for United Utilities' return mission into the Haweswater Aqueduct to inspect the 56-mile pipeline and carry out maintenance where required. The pipeline supplies 570Ml of potable water daily. C ongratulations to Bazalgette Tunnel, which has been named as the preferred bidder to nance and build the multibillion-pound Thames Tideway Tunnel (see front page). The organisation, which boasts a consortium of investors comprising funds managed by Allianz, Amber Infrastructure Group, Dalmore Capital, and DIF, now has to wait to get its licence from Ofwat. As the Infrastructure Provider (IP), Bazalgette will be regulated the same as the other water companies. Therefore, the regulator has now gone out to consultation over the IP's licence. The consultation includes a proposal for customers to bene t from any underspend on the project to the tune of 70%, although what are the chances of that happening? Needless to say, though, the announcement of the IP and the consultation has provided more opportunity for the detractors of the controversial sewer to air their views that there are more suitable alternatives. The latest opposers to the tunnel are former heads of Ofwat – Sir Ian Byatt and Philip Fletcher. Sir Ian told the Financial Times that the sewer is unneccessary and a huge waste of taxpayer money, while Fletcher believes there is scope for improvement options that oŒ er better value for money. They may be right. But if there were suitable alternatives, I would like to think they were given equal consideration along with the Tideway Tunnel. But whatever has happened behind the scenes over which project is best to deal with the tens of millions of untreated sewage entering the Thames, one thing's for sure – there hasn't been a project like the Tideway Tunnel in the water industry since Sir Joseph Bazalgette developed London's sewer network back in the day. SMEs go rural north of the border Scottish Water's procurement department has been busy si• ing through all the tenders wanting to help deliver the company's £3.5bn, six-year investment programme. The company has settled on a staggering 60 small- to medium-sized rms to form a framework of rural contractors (see p3). According to Scottish Water, the rural framework contrac- tors will enable smaller companies to support its Alliances and in-house delivery team at a local level by ensuring eš cient delivery of improvements to assets. And it's great to see. So o• en small companies feel they are unable to compete with their larger rivals and, as a result, can be put oŒ from going for a contract for that reason. But why should they be? The local knowledge of these companies can prove invaluable in the grand scheme of things, as well as a cost- saver. they were given consideration UK water network 'vulnerable to terrorist attack' › Industry expert warns the existing DMA structure is not 'quick enough to cope' with an attack. T he UK's drinking water is at far too great a risk from potential contamination of supply by terrorists, with cur- rent systems simply not quick enough to contain a chemical or biological attack, Craig Stan- ners, director of IVL Flow Con- trol, has warned. According to Stanners, the present District Metered Area (DMA) structures are too slow to close down or divert something potentially fatal or incapacitating in the network, meaning that water companies are leaving themselves extremely vulnerable. He said: "What's in place at the moment isn't anywhere near quick enough to cope. Those wishing to cause damage to our drinking water would laugh at our response that we're waiting ve days for results to come back from the lab – by then, it will be too late." Instead, claimed Stanners, a water quality monitoring sys- tem coupled to strategic control nodes / valves is the answer, so that in the event of a water quality failure or terrorist attack, intelligent re-zoning would automatically prevent unwanted biological content or chemicals reaching the distri- bution network. He added: "We're currently working on a major industrial installation, where we've designed in a preventative valve and penstock contamination system to eliminate any risk whatsoever of hydrocarbons entering the local sewer net- work – yet we aren't being called in to protect the public from a potential terrorist wave of water-soluble biological or chemical contaminants. This can't be right." Stanners cited Al-Qaida's threats to poison drinking water in American and Western cities, as well as arrests made in Jor- dan of Iraqi agents who attempted to poison the water supply that serves American troops in the eastern Jordanian desert. "As it stands", continued Stanners, "the contaminant can be detected as it enters the water treatment plant, and even in the very best-case scenario it would then be shut down while the harmful bacte- ria is neutralised. "This would usually result in a 'boil your water' alert, but this delayed reaction caused by outdated technology means that the contaminant is unde- tected and people begin to get sick or die." Stanners also pointed to two recent high pro le events where power tools had been used to commit major oŒ ences, namely the £60M Hatton Garden jewel- lery heist in London and the escape of two convicted murder- ers in New York. "It's well within a terrorist's capability to use power tools to drill straight into a trunk main," he said. Stanners continued: "It's quick – whereas identifying the type of illness and the actual source of the contamination would take a substantial amount of time. The technology to intelligently shut systems down without the public com- ing to harm is now available, so one has to ask, why take the risk?" www.teekaycouplings.com tel: +44 (0)1494 679500

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