On Monday 25 November, we were fortunate to benefit from the knowledge and experience of Dr. Marc Pidou of the Cranfield Water Science Institute, a specialist in water recycling technologies. Over seventy-five minutes of clear, detailed, presentation and forty-five minutes of equally informed responses to a variety of questions raised by the audience, we learned more about advanced water treatment processes than even the core group of the ‘Water Matters’ team expected. If all you’ve seen to date is the explanation given by Ian McMahon, Southern Water’s Director of Water, on BBC South Today at the beginning of the month, then what you’ll see in Marc’s presentation are the facts, set out by a man who really knows what he’s talking about.
Beginning with a simple slide on current accepted practice, Marc explained what should be happening on a daily basis at the Southern Water wastewater treatment plants right across the three counties from which the audience was drawn, Hampshire, West Sussex and the Isle of Wight. He then gave us an authoritative guide to the sequence of advanced treatment steps which will need to be added, some sequential, others in parallel, to turn the treated effluent from the Horsham, Littlehampton, Sandown and Havant sewage works into the future drinking water supply proposed in the Southern Water WRMP.
If you missed the session, set aside a couple of hours, click the image below and watch it here:
For those who want to look a little closer into Marc’s presentation, you can open a PDF copy of his slides by clicking the image below:
The audience member who questioned whether there were engineers with the right skills in Britain to run such a plant seemed to miss the point. Despite the undoubtably capable engineers who work for Southern Water, and we know some of them well, they’re operating within a finance-driven culture that pares essential maintenance expenditure to the bone. You may well find yourself asking whether a company which appears to operate a ‘fix on fail’ attitude to its essential plant and pipeline network is up to the task of maintaining and operating the technology that Dr. Marc Pidou so clearly set out.
If you missed the South Today broadcast on 4 November which set out the company’s marketing line, you might appreciate this post from Solent Protection Society which took a deeper dive into that report.
Havant Matters 