25/04/2012

Drought - what drought?


Photo source: Southern Water Peacehaven WWTW
Despite the current rain, we are going to be short of water this summer as underground water levels remain at record lows. Despite appearances England is not a wet country, we get less rain per head than Sudan. Yes annual rainfall is much higher but not when our high population density is taken into account.

There is not a simple answer. Water is far too cheap and heavy to justify long distance trunk mains from say Scotland or the River Severn. But it is certain more must be done. The obvious place to start is demand – why in Britain do only a third of homes have meters when all our industrial competitors (except Ireland) all have meters? Houses that have meters use on average 15% less water. 

Why do we still accept 25% leakage almost the same as 25 years ago? Leakage at Thames Water is over 25% while in Paris and New York it is 10% and Singapore only 5%.

We also need to get better at sharing water locally. The driest county Kent has six water companies. The Environment Agency has suggested that the water companies could save half a billion pounds by installing a few linking pipes between their systems. Forget a national grid, install a Kent grid instead.

Water companies want to saddle customers with very expensive new reservoirs. Yet our track record of building reservoirs in the right place is not good, just look at Kelder, its water remains under used. We need to move away from the unhelpful bias in the regulatory system towards capital cost schemes rather than reducing operating costs. This needs leadership at Ministerial level with a real willingness to accept that water problems, drought or floods will only get worse and decisive action is needed. 

16/04/2012

Urban Waste Water Directive still driving investment in water infrastructure


Photo source: Southern Water
Despite the fact the Urban Waste Water Directive  (UWWD) was supposed to have been implemented by 2000 it is still driving major investment across Europe. In the UK virtually all schemes are now complete except London. The UWWD is one of the factors forcing the investment in the Thames Tideway Tunnel.
There are similar very major schemes in Europe especially a huge scheme in central Paris as well as schemes in Italy and Spain.

Despite the current harsh economic climate there is continuing pressure from  the EU to enforce current legislation, with both Belgium and Luxembourg subject to fines. The EU is also seeking to foster integration of water and other policies especially the common agricultural policy. Consultation is currently open on several directives that could have significant financial impacts.

Topically the EU is talking about a European standard on drought management and water efficiency. This could help to drive European wide standards for water saving equipment and fittings, which could be useful.  Although the UK stance will be that it prefers to manage drought issues not the EU. 

02/04/2012

Bathing Water Standards - trouble ahead


Photo: Courtesy of Southern Water- their new treatment works at Brighton

The story over the last two decades has been one of steadily improving bathing water quality largely as a result of the massive investment by the water companies in coastal sewage treatment. Now the situation is about to change.

For the last few years bathing water quality has plateaued. In 2015 the new Bathing Water Directive comes into force. This changes the classification of water quality – if the proposed standards came into force today, 10% of English waters would fail. In addition the blue flag status will move to excellent water quality in 2013.

The other change which will have a big impact is that from this year information on water quality and sources of pollution will have to be displayed at all bathing waters and in 2016 classification symbols will also have to be displayed. This sounds like an innocuous change but the impact is likely to be very significant. When major beaches have to display a clear sign saying water quality is not fit for bathing the public relations consequences are likely to be severe. 

Further improving bathing water quality is likely to be expensive. The frequency of spills from combined sewer overflows will have to be reduced further and action will be needed on diffuse sources of pollution as well.