Issue 1, February 2014Issue 1, February 2014. . . from the Foundation for Water Research

www.fwr.org

THIS ISSUEACTIVATED SLUDGECENTENARY by Tim Evans 1

Wastewater Matters 4

Private Water Supplies 6

Contaminants of Concern 7

FWR news 8

FWR Publications 8

. . . which celebrates the centenary of the activated sludge process. Tim Evans takes us through the history of the discovery and development of this, a process that has had such a profound impact on wastewater treatment and made a huge difference to our rivers.

‘Wastewater Matters’ reports on the 18th European Biosolids and Organic Resources conference, looking at thermal hydrolysis and dewatering. Problems caused by very wet conditions on farms storing dewatered biosolids are also considered.

In recent months FWR has attended two conferences on the water supply side: ‘Private Water Supplies – Countdown to Compliance’ and ‘Contaminants of Emerging Concern’. Key issues from these are presented on pages 6 and 7.

I’m pleased to tell you that the first David Newsome award for the writing of a ROCK (Review of Current Knowledge) has been awarded – see back page for details and for information about our new publications.

For information on events and news highlights please go to our website www.fwr.org. You can also contact us via email (office@fwr.org.uk) or telephone (01628 891589).

Maxine Forshaw - Editor

Welcome to the winter issue of the FWR Newsletter

Tim EvansFWR Wastewater Section Co-ordinator

1914 WAS A MILESTONE YEAR. The Great War, which began on 28th July

1914, was of course the most significant event, but three months earlier a revolution in wastewater treatment was announced that was to sweep the world. On 3rd April 1914, at the Grand Hotel in Manchester, Edward Ardern gave a paper to the Manchester section of the Society of Chemical Industry on work that he had been undertaking with William Lockett. It was entitled ‘Experiments on the oxidation of sewage without the aid of filters’. It marks the discovery of the activated sludge process. On 10th December 1914, Ardern presented their research to the 13th AGM of the Association of Managers of Sewage Disposal Works, which, via a series of mergers and name changes, became the present CIWEM (Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management). Within the next year, at least 12 cities around the world began testing the process.

The activated sludge process is now one of the most widely used processes for the treatment of wastewaters from medium to large populations worldwide. Wastewater collection and treatment using activated sludge has restored to health metropolitan rivers that were dead in the 1950s. In those days, cities turned

ACTIVATEDSLUDGE 100:THE PROCESS THAT GAVE US BACK OUR METROPOLITAN RIVERS

their backs on rivers such as the Aire, Irwell, Mersey, Thames and Tyne, with good reason. Today, river frontage constitutes some of the most expensive real estate; the waterways are lined with prestige apartments, offices and restaurants. This transformation is largely due to activated sludge - the process by which sewage and industrial wastewaters are treated using air and a biological floc composed of bacteria and microorganisms such as protozoa.

Laboratory at Davyhulme (Courtesy United Utilities)

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Much of the inspiration for the discovery at Davyhulme resulted from a visit by Fowler to the USA in November 1912 in connection with the pollution of New York Harbour. In the light of his work on M7, he was ideally placed (‘a prepared mind’) to benefit from a visit to the Lawrence Experiment Station, Massachusetts, where experiments were underway on aerating sewage in the presence of algae and other organisms grown as biofilms on slabs of slate held an inch apart in an aeration basin. Over a period of 24 h aeration, they could produce a well-clarified and partially nitrified effluent. On his return to Davyhulme, Fowler initiated research along similar lines to be carried out by Ardern and Lockett.

In 1913, they aerated Manchester raw sewage in 80 oz bottles, blowing air through a tube that was bent at 90° to provide continuous and thorough mixing. After five weeks’ continuous aeration they obtained complete nitrification. The bottles were allowed to settle, the clear supernatant was decanted and further raw sewage added without removing the sedimented sludge. Repeating this process a number of times they found that as the deposited matter increased, the time required for oxidation reduced. Eventually, a fresh sample of raw sewage could be completely oxidised and clarified in 24 hours. Even then they were not certain whether it was a biological, physical or chemical process, but sterilising the sludge with steam showed it to be a biological process. Ardern and Lockett commented: “For reference purposes and failing a better term, the deposited solids resulting from the complete oxidation of sewage have been designated activated sludge” and so the process got its name. Although it seems simple and straightforward now, Lockett remarked in 1954: “Forty years ago deliberate mixing of sludge and sewage, in order to obtain or accelerate purification of the sewage, was quite an unorthodox and revolutionary procedure”.

Up to this point, all the work had been at a laboratory scale and Lockett realized that work on a larger scale was necessary to establish the economic and practical feasibility of the process. He applied to the Worshipful Company of Grocers for one of their annual scholarships ‘for the encouragement of original work in sanitary science’. The terms of the scholarship specified that the proposed work should relate to preventing premature death. Previously, almost all scholarships had been awarded for medical-

Lockett was a research chemist working for Manchester Corporation’s Rivers Division, undertaking research at their Davyhulme laboratories, supervised by Ardern, who was the resident chemist (having worked at Davyhulme since 1899). At the time, Manchester was recognized as a centre of excellence for research in sewage purification. This was largely as a result of the inspirational approach taken by Gilbert John Fowler of Manchester University’s Chemistry Department and consulting chemist to Manchester’s Rivers Division. He had been responsible for the overall direction of research at Davyhulme since 1904. Manchester University was then a centre of expertise in the application of microorganisms for industrial processes. It was there that Lockett undertook his Master’s degree under the supervision of Chaim Weizmann (who, incidentally, was elected the first President of the State of Israel on 1st February 1949).

Weizmann worked closely with Fowler and they super-vised the work of two more research assistants, Ernest Moore Mumford and Gladys Cliffe, who later married. Mumford was working on a bacterial isolate from a local colliery, known as M7, which was able to clarify sewage in the presence of air and iron salts. (Sadly, Ernest would die in the war but in 1936 Gladys became MD of Acti-vated Sludge Ltd.)

Fowler considered that the use of a naturally occurring microorganism to undertake the treatment of sewage was a great breakthrough.

Ardern and Lockett with unknown work colleagues (1910). Edward Ardern is standing on the left and William Lockett is seated right.(Courtesy of Paul Cooper)

Schematic of Waste Water Treatment Works (Courtesy Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc).

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Demand) removal, it has changed little over the past century. It worked very well when it was first developed, and it works well today.

Ardern and Lockett, the acknowledged inventors of the process, both led distinguished research careers publishing more than 25 papers in the journals of CIWEM’s antecedent institutions. These ranged from the microscopy of activated sludge and the role of protozoa, the use of sewage sludge as an agricultural amendment, and in 1920 they investigated the potential of generating methane as a valuable by-product from the digestion of sludge. Both went on to become presidents of CIWEM’s former institutions, Edward Ardern in 1929-30 and William Lockett in 1942. Whereas Ardern remained at Manchester until his retirement, Lockett became the Chief Chemist of the Middlesex County Council Drainage Department (now Thames Water) in the early 1930s. As with all great inventions, there comes a time, a place and the right people. The intellectual setting provided by Fowler at Davyhulme proved to be the ideal environment for Ardern and Lockett, practical and talented chemists. In this age where we strive for more innovation in the water industry, we can learn a great deal from this simple and effective model.

To commemorate the achievements of Lockett, Ardern and Fowler at Davyhulme, CIWEM’s Wastewater Management Panel, in cooperation with AquaEnviro, is holding a centenary event on 2–3 April 2014. This event, sponsored by United Utilities, Strathkelvin

Screened sewage and final effluent at Mogden STW; the activated sludge plant can be seen in the background, with the power house beyond

Construction work at Davyhulme (Courtesy United Utilities)

based work. However, Lockett was successful with his application and he was elected a Grocer’s Fellow in July 1914 (renewed in 1915 and 1916). Lockett attributed his success to the fact that several eminent members of the Panel of Assessors had also served on the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal.

Lockett constructed a full-scale continuous flow unit at Withington by converting an existing tank to accept 250,000 gallons per day, about 10% of the works’ total flow. Messrs Jones and Attwood, a sewage and hydraulic engineering firm, built the air distribution equipment, which was commissioned in September 1917. Following a very successful period of operation, a second unit was designed and constructed at Davyhulme in early 1921 to treat a dry weather flow of 1,000,000 gallons per day.

Fowler was initially opposed to patenting, but as the commercial potential became apparent, and after getting assurance from the Town Clerk that Manchester had no rights to the discovery, he was persuaded to allow Walter Jones of Messrs Jones and Attwood to patent the process in return for £1,000 in shares. Manchester Rivers Committee applied to the Council to bring a vote of censure against Fowler because they suspected that he was being paid twice for his services, once by Jones and Attwood, and again by themselves. The vote was narrowly lost; shortly afterwards Fowler moved to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore where he continued to work on the nitrogen cycle and the agricultural use of sewage sludge.

Jones and Attwood won the majority of contracts for construction of the new works - their success might have been attributable to their novel form of contract. They installed the plant at their own risk, and only when it had demonstrated its worth (based on the effluent quality) was it taken over by the client. This arrangement was used for what was effectively the first full-scale activated sludge plant, built at Worcester in 1916 to treat a flow of 626,000 gallons per day.

In 1919, Jones and Attwood transferred all the activated sludge work to a new company, Activated Sludge Limited, based in Westminster. It proved to be a very litigious venture and in the late 1920s it filed suits for patent infringements against Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland and a number of smaller cities. The success of these suits meant that many cities that intended to install activated sludge simply elected to build filters rather than pay the steep royalties. Uptake of the process stalled until the patents expired in the late 1940s.

Since the expiry of the patents, the activated sludge process has been the dominant technology worldwide for large, urban treatment plants. It has seen many process advances: nitrogen removal, phosphorus removal, dissolved oxygen control and improvements to sludge-settling characteristics, but in the performance of its basic function of BOD (Biochemical Oxygen

Instruments and Thames Water, and supported by the Society of Chemical Industry, IChemE and Global Water Intelligence, will involve two days of invited contributions covering the past, present and future of activated sludge. It will feature a large trade exhibition together with an historical exhibition tracing the history and development of the activated sludge process around the world.

For further information about the event, go to: http://www.activatedsludgeconference.com/

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WASTEWATER MATTERSTim Evans,FWR Wastewater Section Co-ordinator

THE 18TH EUROPEAN BIOSOLIDS AND ORGANIC RESOURCES CONFERENCE (18-20 November 2013) was held in Manchester Town Hall. The main excitement was around thermal hydrolysis, which enhances

anaerobic digestion, biogas production and volatile solids (VS) destruction, reduces the specific volume of tankage required to one-third, increases dewaterability and totally sterilises the sludge.

Delegates wanted to hear about United Utilities’ new thermal hydrolysis at Davyhulme Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) (associated with the discovery of the activated sludge process 100 years ago), and about the works at Blue Plains, Washington DC, which is well underway. Cambi has come a long way since I was the ‘early adopter’ who got it installed at Chertsey in 1998. (Cambi thermal hydroysis is a high-pressure steam pre-treatment for anaerobic digestion of municipal and industrial sludge.) The chronology fits the general pattern that it takes about 10 years in the water industry for a technology to ‘cross the chasm’ and reach the ‘early majority’. Until recently, each installation was a new design but now with the experience of more than 30 installations, it has been turned into a product with a range of standard models and modules. It has even earned a competitor: Veolia now offers BioThelys. Time will tell how the two implementations of thermal

hydrolysis compare for performance, reliability and whole life cost. Originally thermal hydrolysis was really only applicable for larger facilities but both companies now offer containerised units that are financially viable for smaller facilities (from about 12 tDS/day).

With all this interest in anaerobic digestion it was fitting that one of the twelve ‘Manchester Murals’ painted by Ford Madox Brown for the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall to mark the history of Manchester, was of John Dalton collecting samples of biogas from pond sediment. John Dalton FRS (1766–1844) was an English chemist, meteorologist and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory (the atomic mass unit is called a ‘dalton’), and his research into colour blindness.

(Below)

‘Dalton Collecting Marsh Fire Gas’ by Ford Madox Brown (Courtesy Tim Evans)

A second advance that looks as if it might have crossed the chasm is the Bucher dewatering press, which achieves much greater water extraction than plate presses, centrifuges or belt filter presses. Thames Water is installing it at several sites.

When I first heard about this in 2003 at the IWA sludge conference in Trondheim, I was sceptical that good side-by-side results using a belt filter press at one WwTW would translate universally, and also that a press that dominates the fruit juice extraction market would succeed with a variety of sludge characteristics. Werner Krauss explained that they juice many different fruits and that, for example, apple juicing starts with crisp apples and ends with much softer fruit. Since the press copes with this diversity, it should cope with the various types of sewage sludge and their changing characteristics, and so it has proved.

In addition to better dewatering, it should not suffer ROSI (Regrowth, Odours and Sudden Increase), which is associated with high-speed centrifuges. ROSI is the acronym for the sudden increase in faecal coliforms (including Escherichia coli), odour and regrowth (of the coliforms). That is the actual sequence of the phenomena but ‘SIOR’ doesn’t trip off the tongue as easily!

The evidence from Matt Higgins at Bucknell University (Pennsylvania, USA) is that sludge treatment (up to 70°C) can render faecal coliforms (FC) ‘viable but not culturable’. When standard lab culture methods (such as ‘Colilert’) are used to enumerate them, the numbers found are low, but quantitative

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(Above) Fresh stockpile of dewatered digested biosolids (about 22% Dry Solids)

(Below) The same stockpile covered with an ARSC

polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) tells a different story. Passage through a high-speed centrifuge (and presumably the shock of the high shear forces) renders FC culturable again. Biosolids that are ‘enhanced treated’ before centrifugation can produce cake that even fails ‘treated’

THE WINTER OF 2012/13 was exceptionally wet in many

parts of the UK. Farmers’ field operations were disrupted, crops were not sown and some of those that were, drowned. It also meant that dewatered biosolids could not be moved out to stockpiles on farms, and some of the on-farm stockpiles that had been built (but not spread) ‘self-levelled’ and moved, with a few consequential pollution incidents. Spring 2013 was late, followed by good weather but harvest was late and difficult. Winter 2013-14 is also proving to be exceptionally wet and again, stockpiles are moving.

SEVERN TRENT WATER decided they had to try something

different to solve the problem and ordered an Airbeam Roller Stockpile Cover (ARSC). The exemption that permits stockpiles on farms requires that they are contained and secure, but when I was managing biosolids recycling, neither I, nor others could find a practicable means of achieving that. Subsequently, I had the idea of wrapping a tarpaulin around a one-metre diameter inflatable roller, which can roll the cover across a stockpile (and retrieve it), securing the whole stockpile against wind-blow with continuous water-filled tubes around the perimeter. That became the patented ARSC. Representatives from Severn Trent, Southern Water, United Utilities, together with contractors and consultants at a demonstration of the ARSC agreed that it is a simple practicable solution to containing and securing on-farm stockpiles against rewetting and movement.

after centrifugation. Fortunately, Salmonellae and other pathogens do not exhibit a ‘viable but not culturable state’. However, the number of indicator organisms is still a technical failure. Matt thinks that it may be necessary to go to 75°C to render FC non-viable. This sudden increase in numbers happens too quickly to be due to growth, but growth does follow slowly because the shear also exposes fresh substrate. Presumably this fresh substrate is also the source of microbially produced malodorants that some have found are consequences of centrifuge dewatering.

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Private Water Supplies Countdown to Compliance22 October 2013Mike Waite, FWR Water Supply Co-ordinator

SIXTY DELEGATES AT THE ROYAL SOCIETY for Public Health enjoyed an informative and stimulating meeting chaired by David Clapham who achieved the ideal

balance of seriousness and levity. Sarah Johns (Pembrokeshire CC) outlined the Welsh Guidance Document on Provision of Temporary Drinking Water Supplies at Events (http://www.cieh-cymruwales.org/workarea/showcontent.aspx?id=3400). The guidance, currently in draft, complements the Purple Guide to Health, Safety and Welfare at Music and Other Events drawn up by the Events Industry Forum which itself is designed to replace the original ‘Purple Guide’ (HSG195) published by the Health & Safety Executive in 1999.

Rachel Chalmers (Head of UK Cryptosporidium Reference Unit) presented Cryptosporidium in the UK. She estimated that the unreported rate of acute cryptosporidiosis is about 60,000 p.a. although only 3,000–6,000 cases are reported. Drinking water was the most common recorded exposure in the very small number of documented outbreaks. An incident in which Cryptosporidium was detected in water supplies in Australia in 1998, although without any evidence of disease, was estimated to have cost US$45 million plus additional ongoing monitoring costs of US$2.5 million p.a. Of eight outbreaks of infectious intestinal disease recorded by Public Health England and attributed to private water supplies (PWS), none were of cryptosporidiosis; three outbreaks were attributed to other causes although PWS and Cryptosporidium were involved. For many reasons, outbreaks are poor indicators of health risk from PWS. A study of seven large commercial PWS in the UK detected Cryptosporidium in all of them, ranging from a single sample from one source to 97% of samples from another. It has been calculated that users of PWS have a 25% annual risk of infection by Cryptosporidium although disease rates would be very much lower.

A serious but amusing presentation stressing the health risks of PWS was given by Paul Hunter (University of East Anglia). In the UK between 1996 and 2003 E.coli was detected in 18.87% of samples from the 11,233 PWS tested, with 32.39% of sites having at least one positive sample. A similar picture was found in France. Given sufficient sampling, about 60% of PWS would be likely to fail. Cryptosporidium immunity may last from 6–12 months. Enterococci are the best indicator of cryptosporidiosis risk. Despite all the evidence, PWS users surveyed believed their supplies to be better than public supplies for safety, clarity, colour, smell, taste, bacteria, hardness, lead, pesticides and chemicals! Most PWS users do not treat but those who do rely on UV and filtration. He referred to studies which had shown that chlorine, with or without flocculation, was ineffectual for Cryptosporidium and indeed could actually enhance infectivity. Only filtration was of any real value. Young children and visitors are at greatest risk of illness from PWS.

Claire Pollard spoke about PWS enquiries received by DWI. In the period January to September 2013, total enquiries ranged from about 50 to 75 per month while PWS accounted for between 15 to 40 of these. The majority of PWS enquiries were from Local Authorities (LAs). She outlined where the regulations did and didn’t apply and reported that on the two occasions the application of aspects of the regulations had been challenged in law, verdicts had supported DWI. The Inspectorate have developed a risk assessment tool to aid LAs which is available under licence but must not be modified. She recognised the burden PWS placed on LAs but emphasised that the requirements were from the EC and the UK had to comply. She spoke of the need to have trained samplers and for laboratories to be accredited to ISO 17025. New sampling requirements will arise from the EC Directive on monitoring for radioactivity in drinking water. DWI accepted that the charges set out for recovery of costs needed revisiting and this could be done when the PWS regulations are reviewed to accommodate changes in European legislation.

The role of the Environment Agency (EA) in the North West in respect of PWS was described by Mark Thewsey. The EA has a role in controlling abstractions and protecting aquifers and, as part

of this, it models and maps principal aquifers. However, most PWS are in minor aquifers. There is a lack of historical information regarding the location and purpose of many existing abstractions, and those less than 20 m3 do not require licensing. The EA sets default 50 m inner source protection zones and 250 m outer zones for drinking water abstractions which are then tailored to take account of groundwater flows and other significant features.

Phil Hann (Envireau Water) explained the difficulties of risk assessment of boreholes and referred to other sources of PWS such as catchpits and cisterns. Although Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) are obliged to risk assess PWS every five years, domestic boreholes are essentially unregulated, requiring no licence or consent. Although guidance is available, there are no statutory requirements for domestic borehole construction.

The meeting ended with a thought-provoking presentation by Nigel Horan (Leeds University) in which he questioned the rationale behind the current PWS regulatory regime. He considered what is being done and why, whether it is achieving useful results and at what cost, and whether there are better and/or cheaper alternatives. He suggested that efforts should be made to educate PWS users rather than simply imposing regulation. He emphasised that sampling and analysis of a PWS does not measure its quality, which may not be consistent. Despite one of the drivers of the regulations being the protection of human health, we are not measuring whether this is being achieved. Although full regulatory compliance is required before 2015, about 90% of small, shared domestic PWS have not yet been risk assessed, and neither have over 50% of supplies serving food premises, public buildings, and tourism and leisure facilities. Twelve LAs in England with over 100 relevant supplies have not carried out any risk assessments. He estimated the cost of individual PWS risk assessments

and monitoring to be £1571 p.a. which is greater than the cost of providing suitable treatment. He proposed that all PWS should be treated, and should have mandatory service contracts to include sampling, analysis and risk assessment. This would remove a significant burden from already overstretched EHOs.

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Contaminants ofEmerging ConcernNottingham Trent University – 31 October 2013

Mike Waite and Maxine Forshaw

Caroline Whalley (Defra) opened with a presentation on Chemicals and the Water Framework Directive. She referred to the 2013 list of priority substances under the Directive, which is expected to be revised around 2017, and outlined other relevant Directives. An accompanying watch list of substances that may warrant inclusion in the next revision of River Basin Management Plans is due in September 2014.

On behalf of UKWIR, Arthur Thornton (Atkins) spoke about Researching the Problem and described the UKWIR Chemicals Investigation Programme (CIP) intended to assist the water industry and others in identifying and assessing the significance of contaminants of potential concern. The CIP looked at the full range of potentially relevant substances, the ability of current treatment processes to remove or inactivate them, and likely amounts to be encountered in the environment.

A Regulator’s Perspective was presented by Pete Marsden (Drinking Water Inspectorate) in which he summarised current legislation and outlined relevant research commissioned by DWI.He referred to the current European standard for pesticides still being set at 0.1μg/l as a surrogate zero with the exception of four pesticides, while in the US individual pesticides have specific

standards based on toxicology and many are set well above this level. A desk study reviewed pharmaceuticals and a formula for predicting concentrations in drinking water was developed. Predicted concentrations in drinking water were less than one thousandth of the therapeutic dose for all but ten substances and of these, four were illegal drugs. DWI concluded that there is no risk from pharmaceuticals in drinking water.

Steve Tennison (MAST Carbon International) talked about Development of Novacarb, a novel polymer-bound carbon, and its ability to remove metaldehyde, a widely used molluscicide and a substance highlighted by Anglian Water as being of concern. Novacarb outperformed GAC (granular activated carbon) in lab-scale studies although some limitations were apparent and the material is not yet available in sufficient quantities to allow work at demonstration or pilot plant scale.

United Utilities’ (UU) approach to tackling Priority Substances was outlined by Carolyn Heath. Following a study to assess the contribution of wastewater discharges to Priority Substances in the aquatic environment, UU identified that 112 of 550 sites would fail environmental quality standards (EQSs) when in force, for one or more of seven selected Priority Substances. All 112 would fail for tributyltin. A review of the effect of various conventional treatment processes showed that, apart from membrane filtration/reverse osmosis, for which data was not fully available, no treatment was effective against all the selected Substances.

Ruth Barden described how Wessex Water had set out to develop a standard design of reed bed/controlled wetland. Tests using six different substrate beds for bulrushes showed steel slag to perform best overall in terms of substance removal, especially for orthophosphate, but no substrate was ‘the best’ for every substance monitored. None of the substrates could remove Diclofenac.

‘Do we have an answer for emerging pesticides?’ asked Barrie Holden (Anglian Water). He explained that emerging pesticides (eg clopyralid and metaldehyde) have caused com-pliance issues and that an im-mediate cost effective solution is not available. Catchment man-agement is a long-term solution; treatment provides more imme-diate action. Many treatments have been tried with varying results. A low carbon and cost effective treatment is the pre-sent challenge for technology companies.

Pascal Martin (Veolia) con-sidered the evolution of treat-ment and the development of the ActifloCarb® process. With the drivers of drinking wa-

ter quality and achievement of good ecological quality of sur-face waters, efficient removal of micro-pollutants is essential. The Actiflo process uses pow-dered activated carbon (PAC) and microsand ballasted flocs in a continuous process. Pilot

WE JOINED A GROUP OF ABOUT 50 DELEGATES for this meeting. Despite some presentations causing UAO (Unexplained Acronym Overload) the meeting was very informative and worthwhile!

Nottingham Trent University – Newton Building, of striking art-deco style but actually built in 1956-8

Slugs are controlled by use of the molluscicide Metaldehyde, which has caused compliance issues at treatment works.

Chris Sinclair (Food and Environment Research Agency) described a UKWIR project Prioritising Pharmaceuticals in the Environment. There are some 4000 active ingredients of which around 1000 are prescribed in the UK. When total use is calculated, the top three active compounds are paracetamol, metformin (anti-diabetic drug) and ibuprofen. The project also identified 66 compounds in seven classes considered to be of high hazard concern (rather than for quantities used).

(Courtesy of Harvard Health Publications)

and industrial prototype plants have been tested at wastewater treatment plants in a number of countries. Testing three differ-ent PACs showed that none was superior for every substance. The process reduces endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals and biocides in wastewaters.

The presentations finished with Karin Helwig (Glasgow Caledonian University) outlining the multinational European study PILLS (Pharmaceutical Input and Elimination from Local Sources) which looked at hospitals as sources and loadings of pharmaceuticals at wastewater treatment works. The study focussed not on concentrations in hospital effluents but on total loadings at the plants and the ability of these to reduce or remove them. Key conclusions were that membrane bioreactors, while good at removing COD, nutrients and bacteria, were not efficient for some pharmaceuticals, while granular activated carbon with reverse osmosis leads to high removal of all compounds. The successor ‘noPILLS’ project will look at campaigns to raise awareness of the impact of discharges of pharmaceuticals, together with an assessment of the results of these campaigns on loads to treatment works. It will also look at removal efficiencies of existing treatment facilities, plus the effect of diverting surface water away from treatment plants via SuDS (sustainable drainage systems).

Full text of this article is available in the Water Supply section of our website at:(http://www.fwr.org/drnkwatr/contamnts.htm)

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Publication No : FWR-NEWS 15-0Design Agency - http://www.connellmarketing.com

Well, despite the exceptionally wet weather here in the south of the UK, at FWR we are busy looking forward to a good 2014. We are actively putting the finishing touches to our planned programme of work for this year and beyond: there are a number of new ROCKs (Reviews of Current Knowledge), publication of the ‘Regulation for Water Quality’ book, updating of

the WFD Information Centre section of our website, plus our South Chilterns catchment work, not to mention our presence at a number of water-related exhibitions and events. We are particularly pleased to have recently awarded the first David Newsome Annual Award for postgraduates. Many of you will remember David for all the sterling work he did for FWR in its formative days.

As always we are very grateful to all who support FWR and to those who contribute to our newsletters – thank you.

ROCKs in preparationDEMYSTIFYING NATURAL WATER RETENTION MEASURES (NWRM)The David Newsome award for writing a Review of Current Knowledge has been awarded to postgraduate student Nazli Koseoglu based at SRUC (Scotland’s RUral College) and the University of Edinburgh, supervised by Prof. Dominic Moran and Dr. Kate Heal. The review aims to clarify the competing definitions of NWRM and to scope where these measures fit in the context of WFD and other regulatory requirements.

HARD SUSTAINABLE DRAINAGE SYSTEM (SuDS) INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENTThis review will concentrate on hard SuDS infrastructure, particularly pervious paving, infiltration trenches and linear drains, and their role in addressing problems of water quantity, water quality, amenity and biodiversity. Ways in which such infrastructure can mitigate and adapt to climate change will also be considered.

An update on the activities of the FWR Caryll StephenChief Executive of the Foundation for Water Research

New FWR Publications WATER FOR FOOD SECURITYFR/R0017November 2013

Water and food are inextricably linked as significant quantities of water are required to produce our food. Water is fundamental to agricultural production: crops require water to grow; livestock require water for drinking and hygiene; and farms need water for operations and processing. Inland fisheries and aquaculture cannot exist without freshwater. The water consumed in food production is either sourced directly from precipitation or from soil moisture (green water), or drawn from aquifers, streams and lakes (blue water).

Agriculture and food production are not necessarily the same thing. Large areas of the world are devoted to agriculture, growing crops such as cotton, or crops that are used to produce fuel or other non-edible products (bio-diesel, palm oil). As demand for food to feed the ever-growing world population increases, so does the emerging conflict between crops for food and crops for other purposes. This ROCK introduces and explains some of the main aspects of the water and food relationship.

THE MEASUREMENT OF FREE SURFACE FLOWSFR/R0018January 2014

Hydrometry embraces the measurement of all the elements in the hydrological cycle including surface water flows, groundwater movement and associated phenomena such as sediment movement and morphology. This ROCK concentrates on a major element within hydrometry, namely the measurement of free surface flows. It does not cover flows in closed conduits and pipes although some of the methods described can be used for these applications.

Much of the research into methods of measuring free surface flows was carried out in the 1960s and 1970s and was stimulated in the UK by the Water Resources Act of 1963. There have been some significant advances in more recent times, however, particularly in the fields of remote sensing, data processing and data storage.Research has led to the development of a series of International Standards and, where applicable to UK conditions, these have been published as dual numbered British Standards. The current listing of these International Standards is presented in this ROCK as an Appendix.

Copies of both of these reports are available from the Foundation for £15.00 each, less 20% for FWR members.