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Low cost, local approach to CSO pollution
Familiar sight: beaches suffer when CSOs discharge
Chris Day says we should stop throwing huge capex sums at tackling combined sewer overflow pollution and pursue a local, low cost approach instead.
Last summer, the failings of our combined sewer overflows (CSO) infrastructure was brought into stark relief. Media footage - including a BBC Panorama investigation - showed shocking images of pretty coves strewn with cotton wool buds and other undesirable objects, flushed on to the sand via CSOs during heavy rainfall.
Yet however undesirable, these gross solids are a small part of the story. There was a programme of CSO upgrades during the third and fourth asset management plan periods and these tackled some of the gross visual aspects, but they did not address the problems of sediments, and associated organic and microorganism pollution. This is a gap in our water management strategy.
Missed opportunities
The Ofwat regulatory system seems to miss opportunities to address pollution from roads, agriculture, CSOs and stormwater. It is significant that, in September, a number of concerned bodies started to publicly lobby the government to get its act together. This included an open letter from Water UK, the Consumer Council for Water and the RSPB setting out some clear actions required to pull different aspects of the water management problem together under one vision. At the same time, MPs scrutinising the Flood and Water Management Bill suggested that it missed a "once in a Parliament" opportunity to draft a truly comprehensive water management bill.
In the meantime, climate change predictions offer the prospect of heavier, more frequent storm flows, which means that unless stormwater is managed more effectively before it reaches the sewers, CSOs will spill pollution on to our beaches ever more frequently.
Frightening estimates of billions of pounds for remediating the pollution situation were referred to by the BBC programme, without any detailed substantiation. These huge sums could well be true if large-scale sewage infrastructure solutions were imposed.
But there are better, faster and cheaper solutions to CSO upgrades already available. In light of the tough 2010-15 determinations, this approach is now very pertinent. These solutions have been widely proven, in Europe and the US, and are based on innovative UK-developed technology and smaller-scale, locally distributed near-source treatment. Savings of up to 40 per cent have been achieved over conventional schemes because the need for massive new sewage infrastructure can be largely avoided. And because the approach is modular and small scale, it can be implemented on an incremental basis.
Columbus, Georgia
An urban example is in Columbus, Georgia, in the US. Unregulated CSO discharges were causing water quality impairments in local river the Chattahoochee. This created public health risks and was ruining amenity value. As an alternative to the construction of a £90 million trunk sewer to convey flows to a central treatment facility, the city's water authority invested in satellite CSO treatment facilities. These included Hydro Storm King overflows, located within the local sewerage network, and resulted in the removal of pollutants close to source. This proved effective and saved nearly 40 per cent of the cost of the originally proposed large-scale conventional scheme.
Such small-scale devices can be tailored to local and regional requirements, and are minimally disruptive. They can be paid for as the work is done, removing the need to negotiate large capital expenditure funding, or can even be included with the cost of other development projects.
Instead of throwing large lump sums at our water pollution problems, should we not realise that big is not always best, and aim to adopt a local, low cost approach?
Chris Day is general manager of Hydro International's wastewater division.
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