Spotlight On: Water Quality In The North-East
It’s hard to escape the fact these days that the UK’s water quality is in dire straits, with pollution incidents on the rise thanks to agriculture, surface water runoff, forever chemicals, more regular extreme weather events like drought and flooding, and the use of combined sewer overflows.
Despite increasingly intense public outcry about the situation, it seems that efforts to address these concerns are not going far enough, with Ofwat’s latest annual performance report – published on October 8th – finding that despite commitments to drive down pollution incidents by 30 per cent come 2025, only a two per cent reduction has been seen over the last five years.
Just one water company succeeded in meeting the required performance commitment level for 2023, with nine out of 11 companies seeing a rise in pollution incidents.
This development has spurred Ofwat on to ensure that water supplier environmental performance improves, with proposed enforcement penalties already put forth for Yorkshire Water, Thames Water and Northumbrian Water, totalling £168 million.
Furthermore, investigations into the remaining wastewater companies in England and Wales are still ongoing, so similar outcomes may yet be seen for them, as well.
And a record investment package of £88 billion was recently proposed for the next five-year period, with the aim being to reduce sewage spills by 44 per cent.
In the north-east of England, supplier Northumbrian Water’s overall performance has been rated by Ofwat as average, so the question must now be asked:
What is being done to improve water quality in the north-east?
As the wholesaler for the north-east, Northumbrian Water provides water and sewerage services to 2.7 million people across the region, covering Tyneside, Wearside and Teesside, as well as rural areas on Northumberland and County Durham.
Despite its woeful environmental performance at present, it seems that the supplier is taking action to protect the waterways in its catchment areas, with 16 key goals in place to ensure that rivers, lakes and streams are kept in the best possible environmental health.
These goals include achieving zero avoidable waste by 2025, being carbon neutral by 2027, enhancing natural capital and delivering net gain for biodiversity, having the best rivers and beaches in England and having zero pollution as a result of its assets and operations.
In August, the company unveiled a £10 million investment package to upgrade the Mosswood water treatment works in County Durham, with the aim being to improve resilience and quality of water supply to much of the region.
This investment includes upgrading power systems, installing ultraviolet treatments to improve water quality, increasing chemical storage facilities and construction of a new lagoon to hold and manage partially-treated water as a backup if problems manifest onsite.
And in what has been touted as a world-first for the utilities industry, Northumbrian Water successfully carried out a maiden test flight of drones at the start of the year to help improve the quality of the region’s rivers and coastal waters.
This technology will be used to carry out real-time water quality assessments at scale, alongside cloud data experts Makutu and Skyports Drone Services, as part of a scheme known as Project Kingfisher.
Up until now, water quality has only been surveyed manually, with people sent out to take samples directly from sites, which can be difficult when water sources are in rural areas or far away, or if the weather is bad.
But using drones means that access to remote locations is improved, while reducing carbon footprints and delivering more data over a larger area more efficiently.
Northumbrian Water’s wastewater director Richard Warneford said: “We’re just as passionate as our customers about protecting the environment and improving river and coastal water quality so to have these test flights underway is really exciting.
“There’s a lot of hard work gone into understanding how unmanned aerial video technology can be used to collect data efficiently, and these successful test flights have proven the validity of it as part of our huge water quality monitoring programme.”
How can businesses help?
Businesses of all shapes and sizes have a pivotal role to play in supporting the nation’s waterways, helping to address concerns relating to both water quality and water quantity alike.
One of the best ways to become more water efficient and put sustainability at the heart of your operations is to have a desktop water audit carried out so you can see how and where you’re using water.
Once you know what your water footprint is, you can bring in appropriate water-saving measures, which can be adjusted over time in line with the changing needs of your business. The added benefit of all this, of course, is that you’ll likely end up saving yourself money at the same time!
If you’d like to find out more, get in touch with the SwitchWaterSupplier.com team today to find out how we can help.