Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | MARCH 2016 | 13 terms of your capital expenditure," she says. "If you are looking to deliver a true Totex solution by an operational intervention, not only have you got to win the hearts and minds of the local community, by engaging with farmers, but you've also got to tackle questions like: What's the impact on your asset value? What's the impact on your company business plan? These are the internal bureaucratic hurdles you have to overcome in order to be able to do that." Fresh thinking on catchments To help non-asset solutions become business as usual, Harrison would like to see more regulatory clarity around who has accountability and ownership of schemes once they have been delivered. For example, if an intervention has involved planting trees and building fences, it is currently unclear whether the water company maintains responsibility for their upkeep or whether this responsibility can be handed over to the landowner. If the latter, then the landowner and not the water company ought to be accountable for their long-term performance. Harrison also feels that the Environment Agency could be more supportive of water companies which are trying to go down the catchment management route. "We've had a number of conversations where it feels a little bit like we are dragging the Environment Agency with us, rather than them necessarily supporting this approach as the right approach," she says. "I think that comes back to Defra policy and concern about implementation and delivery of the Water Framework Directive. It feels like our regulator would still rather have an end-of-pipe solution that delivers certainty, than a sustainable solution that might be the right thing to do in the long term." The Water Framework Directive will be the biggest driver for alternative solutions going forward, believes Harrison; it simply will not make sense to put in place capital-intensive solutions at small, rural treatment works where the only requirement for improvement is a new phosphate target under the WFD. Other innovative work that is being done in United Utilities' AMP6 programme includes a £15M project to put aeration into the Manchester ship canal. The canal has been blighted by low oxygen levels caused by contaminated silt, with UU's sewer outfalls being a contributor to this; the aeration plan should provide a permanent fix compared to the alternative of repeatedly dredging the canal of the silt. The company is also putting in place sewer monitoring in its network, carrying out a surface water separation project in Blackpool, and a sustainable drainage (SuDS) trial in Salford which will make use of street trees. These smaller projects sit alongside more traditional larger works that United Utilities is conducting in AMP6, such as the rebuilding of Davyhulme and Oldham Wastewater Treatment Works, the maintenance shutdown of the Haweswater Aqueduct and the construction of the West Cumbrian link pipeline. A Totex struggle Finding a place for more innovative, Totex- friendly solutions in an industry that has been built on engineering and capital projects remains a challenge, Harrison admits. "I think probably all the water companies are still trying to understand how to actually manage Totex, because the regulatory accounting requirements from Ofwat mean that we are still thinking about Capex and Opex. In an ideal world, you'd be looking at the requirement that you've got, and balancing an operational solution with a capital solution; that's what we are trying to do, and that's what we've got all our people and processes driving us to do. In reality, the number of Totex solutions we actually deliver is probably less than we set out to deliver. "But in order to meet the efficiency and performance challenges that we've got in this AMP, and that we will have in the next AMP, we've got to be innovative and we've got to do things differently. We've got to think outside the box. While we've got to maintain and preserve the capability and performance of our existing assets, we've also got to think about how to deliver the obligations we have as an organisation in a different way." Jo Harrison is among the speakers at WWT's Water Industry Asset Management conference, 28th April 2016, Birmingham. Details of how to attend: www.wwt-asset.net • CV: Jo Harrison ● Jo Harrison has worked for United Utilities throughout her career. She joined the company in 1998 a er graduating from the University of Sheffield with a degree in Geography and Ecology, and completing a MSc in Pollution and Environmental Control at Manchester University ● Her early roles included Network Customer Manager, Network Strategy Manager Wastewater Strategy Manager. She became Head of Strategic Asset Planning (Wastewater) in 2012 and was promoted to Asset Management Director in January 2015. ● In her current role she is accountable for setting the asset management strategy for the wholesale business for the next 25 years, including developing and strengthening the company's approach to asset management and environmental regulation and quality as well as improving service to customers. She is responsible for ensuring delivery of the wholesale business plan for AMP6 and setting the strategy for AMP7 and beyond. ● Hear more from Jo at WWT's Water Industry Asset Management conference, 28th April 2016, in Birmingham, where she will be speaking on 'Integrating non-asset solutions into evidence-based decision making'. Details: www. wwt-asset.net

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