WET News

News: United Utilities to boost resilience investment to £250 million. P6 Onsite: Why dissolved air flotation (DAF) is increasing in popularity. P12 Insight: Fighting leakage using variable speed drives to control and reduce water pressure. P20 WET NEWS WATER AND EFFLUENT TREATMENT NEWS Nationalisation debate a valuable 'wake-up call' JULY 2018 Volume 24 • Issue 7 O at demands response a er weather failures Gove wants more environment spending D e f r a ' s D r S e b a s t i a n Catovsky has said the renationalisation debate may be "the wake-up call the sector needed". Dr Catovsky warned that trust and transparency had become central issues for the water com- panies, which have come under pressure a• er Labour pledged to renationalise the industry. The topic received further publicity in June through the GMB trade union's 'Take Back the Tap' campaign, which was launched alongside research showing that nine privatised water company bosses had received £58 million in salary, bonuses, pensions and other bene† ts over the past † ve years. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn expressed his backing for the GMB campaign and said: "The privatisation of water has been a failed and unpopular experi- ment. It's been bad for workers in the industry and bad for bill payers. "The only people it hasn't been bad for is the rich sharehold- ers who have extracted huge amounts of dividends on the back of household bills." Discussing the debate around privatisation at theŠWestminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum keynote seminarŠon June 14, Defra's deputy director for water services, Dr Catovsky, said: "We really haven't had it for a long time. Actually it's coming quite quickly at us and it's taken a little bit of time for the sector to ge t to g r i p s w i t h t h e ke y issues." He discussed the benefits privatisation has brought, includ- ing "significant advances in investment , improvement in services, a better environment", and noted that overall customer satisfaction is high. However, he added: "The real challenge facing the sector at the moment , and something the Secretary of State [Michael Gove] highlighted earlier this year, is really understanding how the private model has worked and how much money shareholders and water companies have made. "It's been really difficult to † nd out. There's all sorts of num- bers out there and it's not very transparent to people." He said this a™ ects trust and customers' views on whether they are getting value for money. On the Moody's data showing the returns shareholders have been making, he said: "You see spikes over time and that's gener- ally related to when companies have been gearing up, so taking on high levels of debt. O fwat has told Thames Wa t e r, S e v e r n Tr e n t , Southern Water and South East Water to submit action plans showing how they will avoid a repeat of their failings during the "Beast from the East", warning of further action if responses are unsatisfactory. Ofwat's report into the impact of the freezing weather earlier this year showed more than 200,000 customers did not have water supply for more than four hours and tens of thousands were le• o™ supply for days. The regulator said it found too many incidences of poor advance planning, inadequate commu- nication with customers and a lack of basic support such as bottled water. Ofwat chief executive Rachel Fletcher said: "The freeze and rapid thaw earlier this year was f o r e c a s t a n d w a s n o t unprecedented. "A number of water companies showed what can be done to serve customers in the face of bad weather, but too many companies were caught off guard and let people down, causing real hard- ship as a result. Our report shows there is no excuse for this level of failure. "Four companies have three months to satisfy us that they will be ready to perform at the level customers deserve the next time there is bad weather. "We will take action if they don't rise to this challenge." E nv i r o n m e n t S e c r e t a r y Michael Gove has chal- lenged water companies to increase investment and improve environmental outcomes by 2025. The measures set out by the Environment Agency in the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) will see up to £5 billion of investment by water companies in the natural environment through 2020 to 2025. This will help tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the water environment, from the spread of invasive species and low ¦ ows to the e™ ects of chemical and nutrient pollution. Gove said: "I want water com- panies to invest in the long-term future of our environment. It is right that the Environment Agency is challenging water companies to go further. This investment will support our goal to leave the envi- ronment in a better state for future generations." EA chair Emma Howard Boyd said: "We put together a pro- gramme of work for water com- panies over the next five years which will produce significant environmental improvements: protecting and improving over 6,000km of rivers, 24 bathing waters, 10 shell† sh waters and 18000 hectares of protected nature conversation sites. "Water companies have until later this year to submit more detailed plans to Ofwat. I'm look- ing forward to seeing more inno- vation and less pollution." "Obviously a lot of what Ofwat is doing is going to be looking at that so those levels come back down to what people would consider reasonable returns." In April, Ofwat set out an agenda of reforms to restore trust and launched a consultation on new measures for PR19 that could see customers share the † nancial gains made by water companies with high levels of debt. Dr Catovsky said "the Govern- ment very much supports Ofwat in their endeavours" and wel- comed the fact several companies have already started to respond, citing those that have taken action on Cayman Island holdings and pledged to reinvest funds back into the business. " E v e n b e f o r e t h e O f w a t "We're trying to be much smarter in the way we use the existing infrastructure" EMS' Dr Kieran Williams on CENTAUR, P16 "Incremental change won't bring the improvements that are needed" Maxine Mayhew, Costain, P10 EMS' Dr Kieran on CENTAUR, © Defra deputy director of water services says calls for renationalisation have pushed industry to take action "Even before the Ofwat process has concluded, we're already starting to see quite a lot of change in the sector" Dr Sebastian Catovsky C lancy Docwra is using a new live video and audio stream- ing tool to support site deci- sion making on water contracts, a s p a r t o f a d r ive t o b o o s t productivity. The innovative eviid system enables live, secure and recorded two-way communications between site and remote teams and is being rolled out across Clancy Docwra's contract with Southern Water. The platform, which Clancy Docwra said was a water industry Clancy Docwra launches live video streaming tool out repair work more eª ciently and safely. Martin Ballington, water net- work contract manager at South- ern Water, added: "New technol- ogy is an essential part of our drive to create a resilient, reliable and eª cient network for our custom- ers. Clancy Docwra's innovative use of eviid gives us greater over- sight of our maintenance and investment programme, enabling faster decision-making to keep our services up and running." process has concluded, we're already starting to see quite a lot of change in the sector," he said. "I suppose this was the wake-up call the sector needed to look inward at what it needed to do t o i m p r o v e t r u s t a n d transparency." He said he considered trans- parency to be the single most important issue, explaining: "Helping people understand where their money is going is the biggest thing we can do." Water UK chief executive Michael Roberts has sought to emphasise the advances made by the privatised industry. Roberts said: "If the water industry was owned and run by the Government, it would be competing for spending with hospitals and schools, and people have to question whether they think ministers would prioritise spending on water in those circumstances. "The lack of government fund- ing led to the water industry ending up in a poor state 30 years ago, failing to deliver a good service and damaging the envi- ronment, but since privatisation in 1989, water companies have invested around £150 billion on improvements and infrastructure, and continue to spend £8 billion to keep on improving." leakŠ– and these incidences can o• en result in lost time as opera- tives wait for engineering authori- sation to close a job. By using the video link technology, authorisa- tion can be provided in real-time, cutting costs and also ensuring that our teams can be deployed to other jobs elsewhere." The company is also using the system to capture network dam- age, helping to ensure it is better equipped to deal with and assist operatives so that they can carry † rst, ensures that the company's operatives can patch in experts via live link as needed, obtain second opinions and avoid costly multiple site visits.Š By improving communications with site teams, the platform pro- vides a documented record of decision making and can save around one hour on every job. Matt Cannon, chief operating officer at Clancy Docwra, said: "Equipping our site teams with this innovative live streaming platform will help to ultimately deliver a more eª cient and pro- ductive service for our water cli- ents and their customers.Š "It is the next step in our pro- gramme to look at how we can harness technology and instil innovative approaches to over- come inherent water industry challenges. "As part of the drive to tackle water leakage, it is common for site teams to † nd dry holes – parts of the network where there is no

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