NEWS
‘Highly likely’ poisoning caused woman’s death
A catalogue of operational and boardroom mismanagement contributed to the seriousness of the Camelford poisoning in Cornwall 22 years ago, an inquest has been told.
Carol Cross lived in Camelford when 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate was accidentally added to the water supply in 1988 by a delivery driver. She was found to have high levels of aluminium in her brain after her death from a rare form of Alzheimer’s in 1994. According to scientists presenting evidence at an inquest into Cross’s death on 10 November, it is “highly likely” the poisoning contributed to her death from a rare form of Alzheimer’s. At the time, residents were advised to mix their drinking water with orange juice to make it more palatable. Dr Chris Exley, from Keele University, said that was “the worst thing” that they could have done, as the juice enhanced the absorption of aluminium in the body.
Moving on up
BAE Systems’ chief operating officer Steve Mogford will take up the helm of United Utilities in March. Chief executive Philip Green has announced that he will retire in March after five years at the helm.
Exova, the global testing and advisory business, has welcomed a new director to its business as it looks to further expand its operations. Kenny Morris was previously global outsource director at Capgemini.
Electrochemical sensor manufacturer Analytical Technology (AT) has appointed Wesley Hazley as UK business development manager (industry) to help the company’s continued expansion in the UK and European market.
Lukas Loeffler has taken over as chief executive of Siemens Water Technologies. Loeffler, 52, will head Siemens Water Technologies. As CEO of the Siemens Industry Solutions (IS) business unit, he is taking over from Chuck Gordon.
Residents were also told to boil the water, which Exley said would have increased the concentration of aluminium. The Coroner, Michael Rose, has called for a study of the effect of aluminium on people who drank the contaminated water. The former head of South West Water Authority, Keith Court, admitted that he had suppressed vital
information at the time
because he did not want to cause “undue alarm”. The public and local health officials were told there was no risk to public health.
Court revealed that he had discussed how to handle the situation with Michael Healey, an official at the Department of the Environment. Healey wrote to the then Environment Secretary, Michael Howard, saying there were fears that any prosecution threatened plans for water privatisation.
South West Water Authority has been granted an adjournment of several months. Time it says it needs to gather its own evidence.
INDUSTRY VIEW
GM, Hydro Chris Day
Minimising the operating costs of our energy-intensive industry is a daily challenge for UK water companies. For sure, every asset manager is totally focused on optimising the performance of their equipment. Yet, sometimes the very culture and infrastructure we work in can conflict absolutely with those aims. While the end-user is committed to reducing whole-life costs, standard contracts often fall well short of passing on cast-iron demands for operating performance and power consumption to third-party suppliers. As an equipment supplier, most of Hydro’s contracts are with main contractors and uniquely from our perspective we see the conflict that arises between the end- users’ desire for better whole-life costs, and real pressure on contractors to achieve the lowest capital price. Often the one has to be sacrificed at the expense of the other. The Water Industry contributes 1% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions and there’s little prospect of a significant reduction soon. Yet it seems that the very procurement infrastructure in which we operate is holding back the quest for better sustainability. I have seen crazy situations where an innovative power-saving technology – like Hydro’s Hi-Ox fine bubble aeration system – is shelved because on the day it was a few percentage points higher in capital price, even though it may save 25% of electricity compared with traditional solutions over the life of the plant. Framework agreements offer a means for water companies to pre-select equipment based on energy efficiency, and Hydro has been successful in delivering more sustainable solutions this way. But they are far from a universal panacea. Build-own- operate arrangements give contractors the ultimate responsibility for operating the plant efficiently, but the contractor takes on increased risk without owning the assets.
Imposing penalty clauses on main contractors for exceeding energy consumption targets over the life of the equipment might well save carbon emissions, but in real terms it could lead to higher contract values as the main contractor would need to protect against increased risks. According to the latest results of our Web4Water poll on the Ofwat review agenda, sustainability is way out in front as the most important priority for a reformed regulator. Infrastructure changes are long overdue and finding more sustainable procurement and supply chain solutions must be part of that process.
What should be top of the Ofwat review’s agenda? There’s still time to cast your vote at
www.web4water.com.
December 2010 Water & Wastewater Treatment 11
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