Knowledge to solutions – a water company perspective

Expert Forum January 2012

Miles FoulgerEnvironment Strategy ManagerYorkshire Water

“Water is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which must be protected…”

What was our experience of the first river basin plan?

And what was our response?

Substantial investment in daughter directives

• Fresh Water Fisheries Directive• Groundwater Directive• Bathing Beach Directive

Innovation

1. Heavily modified water bodies2. Catchment Management3. Water quality investigations4. Communication

1 Heavily Modified Water Bodies Investigations….aka reservoirs

All YWS Reservoirs designated as HMWB under WFD

Must achieve ‘Good Ecological Potential’ GEP - compliance

GEP = presence of Mitigation Measures

• Driver 1: Impact on fish movement

• Driver 2: Impact on downstream river flows

• Driver 3: Impact on morphology of river

• Driver 4: Impact on water quality of downstream river

• Driver 5: Impacts on lake level regime

YW HMWB Investigation

Measures to deliver GEP potentially impact on operations and yield

Aim of investigation:• ensure any measures are technically feasible and not disproportionately costly

How?• trialling the effectiveness of mitigation measures:• physical constraints – what can we do ?• determine costs (capex, water, opex) ?• determine benefits?

2 Catchment Management

• 2 years comprehensive monitoring pre-intervention

• 5 more years post-implementation monitoring

Peatlands take time to change – long term protection

Restore the hydrology through physical intervention: grip &

gully blocking/ reprofiling. Identification and blocking of sub-surface peat pipes. Red gullies will be targetedYellow gullies will be leftBlue peat pipes blocked with plastic piling & peat dams

Coloured dots show location of existing WQ monitoring points

Taking R&D into practiceUsing knowledge to guide SSSI Recovery project

Oppose new heather

on deep peatRestrict burning on

blanket bog

Permit new heather on

“safe” mineral soils

Endorse grip blocking

to re-wet peat

Encourage alternative DSH to

reduce burn area frequency

Water Quality

Grouse

Farming

Landscape

Carbon

Flooding

Access

Biodiversity

Waterresources

RBWD

Developing (& implementing) integrated catchment management• Multiple objectives • and interests…..

Rivers& fish

3 Water quality investigations

• Understand the impact of the

Company’s discharges on the

receiving environment

• Where we are the cause of

adverse impacts, identify

appropriate solutions

• Put forward solutions for future

AMP investment

Investigation groups

• Generics

• Urban Pollution Management

• Revised Bathing Water Directive

• Eutrophication

• Chemistry

The Don Network

4 Communication4 Communication

The Don Network

The Don Network

The EA and YWS are leading a partnership project to pilot ways of meeting WFD requirements in the Don catchment

The objective of the Don Network

Trial new methods of engagement to develop a ‘Catchment Action Plan’ for the Don catchment

To meet the requirements of the Water Framework Directive: to achieve ‘good ecological status’ in all waterbodies by 2027

Form the basis of the next River Basin Management Plan

Cycle 2 planning‘The river basin management plans from catchment

level information, presenting much of the detail and

supporting information required by the Directive in

easily accessible electronic formats, rather than the

24000 pages of PDFs which form the current plans’

To conclude…

We aim to address the risks and uncertainties from RBMP1 by building our technical understanding and modelling to be able to predict and test solution scenarios.

WFD can not be delivered by conventional engineering solutions alone – we need innovation

We will play a fuller role in RBMP2 and aim to invest wisely on our customers behalf to make a real difference to the environment of Yorkshire.

• Science is key

• Integration & engagement are challenges