Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/696123
4 | JULY 2016 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Industry news July The government is failing to do enough to protect communities at risk of flooding, a report from a committee of MPs has said. The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) report criticised the 'reactive' approach to flood incidents and said there was not enough long-term planning aimed at future flood prevention. It urged the government to maintain steady annual spending on flood defences, rather than allowing spending to fluctuate, and said it should pay for the upkeep of existing flood defences in addition to investing in new ones. The report follows the storms that hit the UK between December 2015 and January 2016, causing flooding in the north of England and Wales, as well as parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Storms Desmond, Eva and Frank Government 'failing to build flood resilience' Contract Tracker Open Energi deal for DCWW Dwr Cymru Welsh Water has signed an agreement with Open Energi to share flexible energy demand from equipment across its network and help manage peaks and troughs in electricity supply and demand nationwide. Following an open tender and successful trial of Open Energi's Dynamic Demand technology, Welsh Water expects to aggregate approximately 5MW from 25 of its sites during the first phase of implementation. NRW awards £70M flood contracts Natural Resources Wales has awarded contracts for flood risk management civil engineering worth an estimated £70M. A total of 13 contractors have won a place on the civil engineering programme, which is split into geographical zones. BMM awarded EA WEM deals Joint venture BAM Nuttall Mott MacDonald (BMM) has picked up two further contracts through the WEM (Water and Environment Management) framework with the Environment Agency. The latest wins involve the delivery of the Exeter Flood Alleviation Scheme and the North Asset Recovery Programme, which involves the recovery of flood defences following last winter's storms. caused estimated damage of £1.3BN and flooded 16,000 households. The government is committed to spending £2.3BN on building new defences and says that it will protect 300,000 properties during this parliament, but the EAC said it was 'sceptical' that this would be achieved as it depended on optimistic forecasts of efficiency. Committee chairwoman Mary Creagh MP said: "We know that flooding is projected to get worse and occur more frequently because of climate change, so it just isn't good enough for government to react to flooding events as they occur. Communities at risk deserve certainty from government." The committee also said it was surprised to learn the extra £700M funding for flood defences announced in this year's budget was £32M The amount of extra money that Dwr Cymru Welsh Water will make available for projects that benefit its customers, after the not-for-profit company revealed its results. The £32M sum is the equivalent of the dividends that are paid to shareholders in other companies. FRANKLEY PERFECT: Severn Trent has fully commissioned a new £14M state-of-the-art limewater plant at its Frankley Water Treatment Works which serves Birmingham. The new facility, which ensures the correct pH is achieved at each process for effective water treatment, replaces an existing plant that was built in the 1990s. It uses a new process that will produce a dissolved limewater solution rather than the lime slurry that had previously been used. based on a "political calculation" and may not be allocated with the same strict economic criteria as the £2.3bn. The report said that could lead to inefficiencies in flood investments, poor decision-making and out- comes that were potentially unfair to some regions. Fail- ing to maintain existing defences would lead to an "unacceptable risk to local communities in flood prone areas," said Creagh. In response, the Depart- ment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that the national flood resilience review launched by the gov- ernment in January would be published shortly and that the government's six- year capital investment pro- gramme for flood defences would end the year-on-year fluctuations in spending. There will also be a 25-year environment plan published later this year.