1. Knowledge to solutions – a water company perspective
Expert Forum January 2012
Miles Foulger
Environment Strategy Manager
Yorkshire Water
“Water is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which must be protected…”

3. 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 bodies
2. Catchment Management
3. Water quality investigations
4. Communication

5. 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

6. 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?

7. 2 Catchment Management

8. • 2 years comprehensive monitoring pre-intervention
• 5 more years post-implementation monitoring
Peatlands take time to change – long term protection

9. Restore the hydrology through physical intervention: grip &
gully blocking/ reprofiling. Identification and blocking of
sub-surface peat pipes.
Red gullies will be targeted
Yellow gullies will be left
Blue peat pipes blocked with plastic piling & peat dams
Coloured dots show location of existing WQ monitoring
points

10. Taking R&D into practice
Using 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

11. Water Quality
Grouse
Farming
Landscape
Carbon
Flooding
Access
Biodiversity
Water
resources
RBWD
Developing (& implementing) integrated catchment
management
• Multiple objectives
• and interests…..
Rivers
& fish

12. 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

13. Investigation groups
• Generics
• Urban Pollution Management
• Revised Bathing Water Directive
• Eutrophication
• Chemistry

14. The Don Network
4 Communication4 Communication

16. 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

17. 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