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28 | 26th February - 3rd march 2016 | utILIty WeeK Community Analysis I t's not oen you get to witness the chief executive of a major water company standing with a knife in a three-foot hole in the middle of a farmer's field in Lincolnshire. Anglian Water chief executive, and national president of the Institute of Water (IoW), Peter Simpson is standing in the mid- dle of a ring of high vis jackets, examining the soil and sizing up the link between com- paction and surface run-off. Those adorned in the high visibility yel- low and orange are eight of the water indus- try's brightest prospects – and Utility Week. They are here as part of the IoW's Rising Stars programme, which celebrates and rewards young professionals in the water sector who have demonstrated potential and shown an appetite to progress in the industry. This latest event sees the Stars in Lincoln where they meet Simpson and the Anglian Water team at the state-of-the-art Hall water treatment works. The topic of the day is the treatment of pesticides, and whether they should be tackled at source or treated and removed from the water. On a stunning but crisp winter's day, Simpson, the Stars, and the Anglian Water team behind the £44 million water treatment plant assemble at the site reception. The Stars chat among themselves – a crucial part of the network-building the IoW champions – before Simpson welcomes eve- ryone. We then all embark on our tour of the Hall treatment plant. The Stars, who hail from a range of back- grounds in the water sector, show a natural inquisitiveness, questioning operational development scientist Chris Faisey not only on how the different elements of the plant work, but also on how the facility as whole is run. Northern Ireland Water's Matthew Lundy shows an interest in the membrane filtering system, while South East Water's Will Finlay and Yorkshire Water's Krishna Morker look particularly closely at the UV disinfection section. Aer a quick pitstop for lunch, the group boards a minibus and heads to a nearby farm to see the other side of the treatment versus prevention debate. Here, Anglian's catch- ment adviser, Kelly Hewson-Fisher, runs through some of the tips the company is offering farmers in the region to prevent the The water sector's Rising Stars The Rising Stars scheme takes eight young professionals from the sector on a year-long skills development programme. Mathew Beech went along with them to an Anglian Water treatment works. The Rising Stars of the water sector Krishna Morker, water quality team leader, Yorkshire Water Krishna gradu- ated from Lancaster University with a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences and a PhD in plant molecular biology. She joined Yorkshire Water and aer a six-month secondment with the DWI, she returned to Yorkshire and gained chartered scientist status. James Sommerville, alliance delivery manager, WGM Engineering James completed an MEng in prod- uct design engineering at the Uni- versity of Strathclyde before joining WGM Engineering as a graduate engineer. As the alliance delivery manager for a new E&M Alliance for Scottish Water, he is responsible for leading both an office support team and field service team in deliver- ing planned maintenance across Scotland. Matthew Lundy, project manager (engineering & procurement), NI Water Matthew's career started out with environmental consultancy RPS as a graduate engineer and assistant CDM co- ordinator and he has worked with contractors in Northern Ireland and Australia. He joined NI Water three years ago and in that time has delivered over £4 million-worth of capital expenditure. Jo Lamont, scien- tist (physics), WRc plc Aer complet- ing her MSci in Physics from the University of Nottingham and research at Fudan University in Shanghai, Jo joined WRc as a gradu- ate in 2014. During her time at WRc she has worked on a wide variety of projects covering asset manage- ment, technology and treatment processes for water companies, technology suppliers and the gas distribution network. Anna Riddick, AMP project scientist, Welsh Water Anna completed a BSc (Hons) in environmental science at Leeds University before joining Welsh Water's graduate scheme. She is now AMP project scientist with responsibility for delivering national environment programme schemes, including the second water industry-wide Chemi- cal Investigations Programme and various Biodiversity schemes. Kara Sadler, strat- egy scientist, Anglian Water Kara joined Anglian Water in 2010 aer complet-