WET News

2 WET NEWS JANUARY 016 COMMENT "Don't hide your inno- vative thinking under a bushel – prove you're a winner" JANUARY £6K The owners of a farm in Su‚ olk were ƒ ned £6,000 and ordered to pay £4,474 costs at Ipswich Magis- trates Court after pleading guilty to negligently allow- ing lagoon slurry to pollute a stretch of the River Yox. "After spending all 30 years of my working life in the UK water industry, and having the privilege of leading the largest company in the sector for the last six years, I have decided this is the right time for me to look for new challenges" Thames Water chief executive Martin Baggs Sutton and East Surrey Water (SESW) said it remains on track to deliver a strong performance across its key water supply activities, as it reported a 0.7% rise in turnover to nearly £32M for the six months to September 30, 2015. Operating proƒ t was down £0.6M to £10.4M for the half-year. The company said 11km of new water mains have been laid and 3,656 meters installed. £32M £11M £300K How much South West Water was ƒ ned by Plymouth Crown Court after polluting a Devon watercourse in 2013. The company was ordered to pay more than £14,420 in costs. £9M The amount of money spent annually on electricity to run 300 blowers for activated sludge plants. "It's vital the entire supply chain works together to adopt best practice in jointing of PE pipe water mains to deliver the improve- ments needed to achieve zero leakage" Dominic O'Sullivan, chair of the BFP's Pipes Group. "It was an impressive sight as it snaked its way round the huge factory..." Scottish Water's general manager of capital delivery, Paul Kerr, on seeing the Tunnel Boring Machine that will construct the £100M Shieldhall Tunnel in the south of Glasgow next year. 200K Around 200,000 new recruits will be needed within eight years to replace those coming up for retirement. Develop Training said there is a golden opportunity to provide job opportunities in the utilities sector. O fwat wants to overhaul the water sector in England and Wales so that future challenges such as resilience, population growth and climate change can be met (see front page). Among the regulator's proposals are removing the red tape to open up the sludge market, and implementing direct procurement. According to Ofwat, projects of £100M or more would be appropriate for direct procurement in the water sector. Ofwat has clearly been impressed by the outcome and success in selecting an independent provider (IP) to ‚ nance and construct the Thames Tideway 'super sewer'. To make its case, Ofwat cites six large enhancement projects – ranging from £115M up to £404M – that featured in the PR14 ‚ nal determinations. While it does not think all elements of the Tideway project IP procurement process should be adopted, Ofwat does think direct procurement is consistent with its strategy of "getting companies to own responsibility for delivery to their customers". My question is, though, how many of these large projects are there now the sector is moving away from new build and focusing more on upgrading existing facilities? WFD driving up green- house emissions The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) says the EU's Water Framework Directive (WFD) is driving up energy and chemical use, and greenhouse emissions. Its latest report, Catchment Management in the Water Industry, reveals that improv- ing natural water quality has only been achieved through energy and chemical intensive treatments that are hugely damaging to the environment – and the water companies' bank balances. Did you know they spend up to £9M a year on electricity to run blowers for activated sludge plants? IMechE is calling for an urgent review of the water legislation to address the situation. I reckon it would be quicker to ‚ nd innovative and more energy e— cient methods. The water sector is an energy intensive industry, and it needs contractors and the supply chain to come up with the right solutions to reverse that. Get your entries in Speaking of being innovative, the closing date for entry to our Water Industry Achievement Awards is looming. It's January 15, 2016. Water companies, their contractors and supply chain need to be forward thinking in all aspects of their activities whether it's regarding technologies, health and safety or customer service. Innovation is about the use of a better and novel idea. It's doing something diœ erent and thinking outside the box. Don't hide your innovative thinking under a bushel – prove you're a winner. Enter now at wwtonline.co.uk/ awards. Costain embarks on a lower carbon e-mission Ÿ Construction group heads year-long project to drive down emissions in an integrated supply chain. C ostain is seeking ways of creating an integrated supply chain that produces fewer carbon emissions. The group is taking the lead role in a consortium that includes the UK's Centre of Excellence for Low Carbon and Fuel Cell Technologies (CENEX) and Edinburgh University that are being funded by Innovate UK. The study will look at current best practice on sites and the barriers to lowering carbon emissions. Reducing these emissions is a fundamental requirement of Costain's customers. The project will pay particular attention to reducing emissions from heavy plant on sites. Currently, all of Costain's emission indices are dropping with the exception of diesel consumption, which has doubled in the past year. This is a by-product of the company's recent success in winning major complex delivery contracts – particularly highways projects, which require heavy plant vehicles that spend a lot of time either idling or working at full power. A search is now on for ways of reducing this consumption. Costain will provide several construction projects as a testbed to understand current processes, engage supply chain partners and present recommendations on how it can transition to low carbon supply chains. Various options for this will be examined including the use of alternative fuels and telematics – systems on vehicles that produce data on performance and can communicate with other vehicles nearby, or a base station. Telematics, for example, can indicate the degree to which individual vehicles are unproductively idling. "The initial drive of the project is to develop an understanding of the cost- bene‚ ts of using telematics," explained Costain's group carbon manager, Damien Canning. "We can then use our ‚ ndings to embed requirements into contracts with plant providers." The aim is to ‚ nd ways of reducing carbon emissions throughout the entire life cycle of a project, but construction vehicles obviously play a large part in that, said Costain project manager, Chris Hills. Cenex was invited to join the study because of its work in ‚ nding low-carbon mobility solutions, said Chris Walsh, Cenex's head of Technical Support and Consultancy. "We're looking at the potential for low-emission and zero- emission solutions to be employed on large construction sites." Potential savings of up to £137.99 per linear metre* *Figure quoted is the difference between Class S (Plastic Flexible Pipe) and Class N (Concrete Rigid Pipe) costs, based on a DN1800 pipe. Potential cost savings are based on normal ground conditions, including granular bedding costs of £15 per tonne and cost of material being taken off-site to landfill at £6 per tonne (figure shown is independent of pipe costs). The bulk density of granular bedding material is assumed to be 2.0 and for excavated material is assumed to be 2.1 For further details on the materials cost calculator visit the CPSA website: www.concretepipes.co.uk/calculators/material-cost Did you know? Using the correct pipe bedding class could save you a fortune. Plastic Flexible Pipe with full granular surround (Class S Bedding) Concrete Rigid Pipe (Class N Bedding) 0115 944 1448 info@stanton-bonna.co.uk www.stanton-bonna.co.uk W E T

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