WET News

2 WET NEWS FEBRUARY 2016 COMMENT "I'm sure Thames will do a sterling job putting the industry's needs across" FEBRUARY £1M The record-breaking € ne imposed by St Albans Crown Court on Thames Water for polluting the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire with sewage on several occasions between July 2012 and April 2013. "Being a GoCo hampers our ability to deliver for customers, and that fact is becoming more starkly apparent… Our delivery model constrains us as an organisation" NI Water chief exec Sara Venning tells it like it is to the Regional Development Committee. Total construction contracts awarded in the UK, includ- ing super sewer Tideway, rose 16% to £74bn last year, according to the latest € gures by Barbour ABI. The rise was largely due to an influx of mega projects. However, the amount of projects commissioned in 2015 fell to 12,000. The average construction project value increased by 18% to £6.2M for the year, com- pared with 2014. 16% 18% 300 The number of new jobs Veolia expects to create over the next € ve years as it targets expansion in the Irish market. It is also targeting double digit growth annually. 87% The percentage of public support for infrastructure investment., according to a recent Copper survey. 85% want to see solid improvements to existing infrastructure. "If we want consumers to take water efficiency seriously, water companies need to show more ambition in tackling leakage" Tony Smith, CCWater chief executive, as more than half of water companies reported rising leakage levels last year. "We do have some concerns the alignment of pylons through the proposed route corridor could put at risk our ability to deliver a reservoir at Broad Oak" South East Water's Lee Dance, on National Grid's plan to run pylons through its land. 21 The number of accessible designated bathing waters identi€ ed by Southern Water in its region to be investigated in the € rst stage of its £31.5M, € ve-year Bathing Water Enhancement Programme. A bunch of organisations, with Thames Water among them, have had the foresight to form a coalition and help tackle the future needs of the UK's infrastructure (see front page). Led by the Instituti0n of Civil Engineers' president, Sir John Armitt, who also just happens to be commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), the National Needs Assessment will set out a vision for UK infrastructure up to 2050. It will also set out options to deliver that vision. Sir John said the assessment will review diŽ erent options for meeting infrastructure needs, and says "the answer is not always to simply build more, but to question why we are doing something; what we want to achieve. "Can we make more e" cient use of existing infrastructure for example?" It's good to see that water infrastructure is included in the assessment. I'm sure Thames Water will do a sterling job in putting the industry's infrastructure needs across but shouldn't other water companies be included as well? Thames Water, like its compatriots in the South, is already having to deal with the eŽ ects of climate change. So would it not be better to have input from around the UK in order to develop a water infrastructure that can deal with water stress? Engineering for water resilience Mott MacDonald, together with partners Atkins and Nera Economic Consulting, has embarked on a project concerning the resilience of UK water supplies. Interestingly, the project is for Water UK, and will provide a long-term planning frame- work to shape water resourcing strategy in the UK for the next 50 years at least. Part of the project will consider whether we need "a more radical strategy" for using and managing water resources. It is a timely announcement following the Institution of Civil Engineers' (ICE) warning (see p4) that a new large-scale water resource is needed for London and the South-east – and before 2027/8, when a gap in supply is predicted for Thames Water's patch. Don't mention the 'D' word Despite the UK having endured one of the wettest winters for decades, I recently heard a radio DJ mention the "D" word. Yes, as the country was mid-Storm Jonas (what happened to storms G, H, and I?) he mentioned 'drought', saying there most probably will be one this summer. Really? With our recent weather patterns being put down to the eŽ ects of the El Nino phenomena, I suppose anything could happen. Information on 2,000 sewage outfalls remain unknown ¥ A "patchy response" from water companies to the Environment Agency, concerning full information regarding sewage outfalls, sparks criticism from angling bodies. T he Angling Trust and Fish Legal have hit out at the water companies for not providing full information on nearly 2,000 sewage outfalls, saying it "is simply unaccepta- ble". The comment comes as their freedom of information request revealed that the frequency and content of 1,968 sewage outfalls remain un- known to the Environment Agency (EA). Thousands of outfalls received temporary deemed consents (TDCs) when the industry was privatised in 1989 because there were no legal permits for these discharges. The EA is now seeking to draw up environmental permits so enforcement action can be taken against water companies in the event that discharges from sewage outfalls pollute rivers, lakes or coastal waters. TDCs were applied to intermittent discharges from Combined Sewage Overª ows, emergency discharges from sewage pumping stations and other discharges from sewage treatment works. In 2009, the EA applied blanket conditions to TDCs to bring them in line with other CSO permits. However, an appeal by the water companies was upheld by the Planning Inspectorate. The Angling Trust and Fish Legal said the information received shows "a very patchy response" from the water companies. The EA had given a deadline of January 31, 2016 for the water companies to produce the information. The Angling Trust and Fish Legal warned they plan to use their newly secured right to request envi- ronmental information directly from the water utilities if they fail to meet that deadline. The EA said that if "su" cient progress is not made then we will consider legal notices". Mark Lloyd, chief executive of the Angling Trust and Fish Legal, said: "We will be watching closely to see if any companies fail to meet the agency's January deadline. It is simply unaccepta- ble that these huge companies have failed to provide the necessary information a quarter of a century a® er these suppos- edly temporary consents were granted by Parliament. "Anglers, swimmers and water sports enthusiasts have a right to know what is polluting their waters and we expect the Environment Agency to be regu- lating the industry properly." The EA wants environmental permits so enforcement action can be taken

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