Taste and odour compounds such as Geosmin and 2- methyl isoborneol (MIB) are becoming more of an issue as the climate changes in the UK and Ireland. Currently the main technology used to remove taste and odour compounds is granular activated carbon (GAC). Regeneration of GAC needs to occur ca. every 3 years and is very carbon intensive with 2 tonnes of carbon emitted for every tonne of GAC regenerated. In addition, the regeneration process is costly and time consuming leading to increased cost to the water company and ultimately our customers.

Previous work has identified that in some cases we are seeing biological removal for geosmin through conventional rapid gravity sand filtration and has been able to isolate the bacteria responsible for this removal.

The project would aim to progress the development of biological treatment as a low-carbon, chemical free, method for taste and odour removal by either manipulating the conditions in the filters to encourage the removal bacteria to thrive or by developing a bespoke treatment process to encourage the biological removal.

If successful, the project could provide knowledge to assist water companies in supporting biological treatment in existing assets. At present, there is insufficient knowledge to manage any bacterial communities which provide this treatment – our operational actions may inadvertently be inhibiting the process. Ultimately, we would aim to have a process which could be deliberately manipulated to provide taste and odour removal.

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To determine whether any emerging contaminants, measured through the Chemical Investigation Programme, pose a potential risk to the quality of drinking water supplies.

Problem

The Chemical Investigation Programme (CIP) Phase 1 &2 has monitored a large number of chemicals that may be entering the aquatic environment from our wastewater treatment processes.  This data, however, has not been looked at in terms of the potential impacts on drinking water quality.

Impact

We currently do not know the impact that these chemicals have on raw water quality for sources located downstream of a waste water treatment works.

Project

This project is an enabler for future work to meet the outcome “An appropriate balance of risk with regards to substances of concern, their public health impact, and mitigation”. It is the first project in a series that will allow the Industry to demonstrate to its customers and other stakeholders, including regulators, that it keeps the upstream risks it faces under review as data becomes available.  Subsequent projects will look in more detail on issues such as treatability i.e. determine if the disinfection process for water containing these chemicals give rise to unwanted by-products of health concern or cause taste and odour issues.

There is increasing pressure on the Water Industry due to interest in the risk of significant levels of pre-fluorinated organics – eg PFOS/PFOA – in drinking water.

There is a request for UKWIR to join in a collaborative group of projects with DWI & EA to build capacity and understanding of the significance of this issue.

Problem
Drinking water quality is of key importance to public health. The current systems of delivering safe water to consumers in the UK is based upon significant investment in infrastructure and performs at an excellent standard at a very low cost.  However, the ongoing and future challenges of climate change, net zero carbon, population growth and aging infrastructure mean that traditional ways of providing safe water may need to change. 

To support the innovation needs in drinking water quality there is a requirement to consider and implement catchments as the first stage of treatment including nature based, sustainable solutions in addition to behavioural changes within catchment owners / users to drive improvements in water quality and offset the need for infrastructure investment. The latter is well developed through current catchment management approaches / techniques however there is less experience on using catchments as a treatment stage particularly for more diffuse sources of water quality parameters that cannot be readily addressed at their source/point of origin. This proposal looks to advance the research into catchments as a treatment stage to supplement the already well developed and implemented catchment management approaches within the UK and Ireland that successfully reduce the input of compounds into source waters.

The following are just some examples of where there is a need to consider and develop catchment based solutions as a first stage of treatment to close the current knowledge gap:
•    With climate change more water companies are experiencing taste and odour events linked to algal growth within source waters. Catchment characteristics and activities can contribute to this and often require additional infrastructure to be installed at Water Treatment Works.  
•    Organic carbon in source waters can be heavily influenced by catchment characteristics and activities and the main. Although many water companies undertake peatland restoration and other catchment management activities many WTWs now have (or will require) advanced treatment process to remove the organic carbon to minimise formation of disinfection by-products.  These processes can be energy intensive and expensive to operate and maintain.  There is a need to consider ways to allow more DOC processing to occur before entering source water bodies. 
•    Dissolved metals in source water bodies can also lead to requirements for additional treatment processes. 
•    With the recast Drinking Water Directive additional parameters are being added to regulations with another two being added to a watch list. Of particular importance are emerging pollutants and the impact of personal care products on water quality. This strengthens the need to fully explore and utilise catchments as the first stage of treatment to offset investment in infrastructure in line with the net zero emissions targets. 

There is also a need to use catchments to provide early warnings to water utilities on issues that may impact on treatment and resultant water quality rather than the WTW instrumentation and performance picking up on a water quality event. The use of online monitoring (of water quality and weather) can provide improved intelligence to support the implementation of catchments as treatment stages. 

Like research on traditional catchment management, research on catchments as a first stage of treatment is a challenging area as often options are specific to locations. Despite this there is a need to identify and assess opportunities for utilising catchments as the first stage of treatment calling out what would need to be assessed prior to implementation in specific catchments. Previous research including the Freedom project has shown that in surface water systems some water bodies act as a net source of organic carbon, and therefore reduce the overall benefits of catchment interventions such as peatland restoration. Therefore research in to catchments as the first stage of treatment needs to holistically consider the catchment system (catchment and water body). 

Building on previous UKWIR Research into remote sensing for catchment management (15/DW/14/12) and other modelling and mapping techniques there are opportunities to utilise these techniques to identify areas where catchments as a treatment stage are likely to deliver the greatest benefits. 

There is a need to: 
•    Identify suitable catchment-based treatment stages and how these can be implemented and the expected performance for the different types of catchments across the UK and Ireland. 
•    Determine where catchments as the first stage of treatment will offer improved source water quality, support the drive to 100% compliance and provide overall value to customers. 
•    Take a holistic view of the catchment system (e.g. combination of catchment and water body) to ensure that full benefits of catchment based interventions are realised. 
•    Identify how catchment based treatment stages will be maintained and protected without loss of biodiversity or public amenity value. 
•    Understand impact of climate change on catchments – need to develop resilient processes. 
•    Create a decision support tool to enable Water Utilities to identify opportunities for implementing catchments as the first stage of treatment, expected performance and value and benefits. 
•    Understand the interface with the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) and equivalent across the UK and Ireland.  

Impact
Unless we can utilise catchments as the first stage of treatment there will continue to be a need for investment in WTW infrastructure to provide 100% compliant water by 2050 and this will potentially hinder the progress to achieve net zero. 
If we can fully understand catchments as a treatment stage, we can look to offset infrastructure investment, offset carbon emissions and improve biodiversity in catchments. This will also help ensure a resilient water system for the next few decades and beyond. 

Project
Such a project could be supported via WIRe CDT or similar, looking at defining catchment based treatment stages, the impact of different catchment-based processes, development of decision support tool to facilitate identification of opportunities to implement catchments as the first stage of treatment and assess the potential value and benefits. 

The project will improve our understanding of utilising catchments as the first stage of treatment using more sustainable processes and may help support a future transition to chemical free water treatment.  

No Further Information Available.

This project will address key issues in order to meet the outcome “Ownership and responsibility for water quality is clear and all part their part in its protection”. The project will improve our understanding of the complex chemistry which underlies the control of lead solubility.  Recent developments in analytical instrumentation open up a number of avenues to enhance the industry's understanding of the surface chemistry which facilitates compliance or causes failure.

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The traditional and regulatory approved methods for the confirmation of indicator bacteria e.g. coliforms, use biochemical testing and these inherently have inaccuracies that can lead to misclassifications of bacteria. Modern methods such as Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionisation Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF) and 16S genotyping and whole genome sequencing are more precise and avoid this misclassification. However, the water quality regulations require water companies to report results based on the reference methods stated in the Microbiology of Drinking Water (Blue Book) which define what a coliform is. This can lead to financial penalties and reputational damage that is based on a technically correct but factually inaccurate result.

For example, Escherichia marmotae is a coliform, but using the traditional Blue Book method it is classified as Escherichia coli. The consequence of this inaccuracy is a doubling of the CRI penalty; and would be seen as a public health risk that could lead to a precautionary boil water notice. For a large WTW this increase in CRI penalty could be over £1m per detection.

Coliforms are not a taxonomical group but rather a collection of organisms defined by their biochemistry, and over time this definition has changed to match the regulatory approved analytical methods. This project seeks to understand the outputs from these modern methods and develop a new definition of a coliform which will remove the current blockers to innovation and facilitate laboratories to move to more rapid, efficient, and accurate methods for the protection of public health.

Drinking water quality is of key importance to public health. The Industry has largely lost visibility of viral risks to DWQ with the lack of laboratory capacity. UKWIR BQ04 project D01, currently active at Cranfield University is developing a new approach to water virology, and undertaking initial work to identify the links between viruses and somatic coliphage – the indicator organism specified in the revised Drinking Water Directive (DWD). This project will make use of the analytical methods developed in the pathfinder project to facilitate a clear understanding of risk to public health when treatment processes are under challenge.  

Using the UKCRIC Water Treatment Pilot Facility there is a need to:

• Undertake a series of challenge trials using suitable virus(es) and somatic coliphage
• Identify the removal capability of individual treatment processes to align with the revised DWD approach to risk reduction
• Identify the correlation, or lack of, between routine treatment indicators, such as turbidity or particle counts, with the passage of coliphage and viruses through treatment processes

Unless we can re-build the Industry’s knowledge around virus risk we are unable to demonstrate the optimal management of risk to health. There is a heightened regulatory expectation to reduce risk, driven by the research underpinning the new DWD, and support realistic Drinking Water Safety Planning.

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If we are to halve our abstractions by 2050 water treatment plant efficiencies will need to be improved. At present industry best practice dictates that wash water return flow is maintained at less than 10 % by volume and with a turbidity of less than 10 NTU. However, with the improved treatment technology over the past two decades are these limits still a reflection of the risk of cryptosporidium oocyst breakthrough or can these limits be risk based on treatment technologies and incoming water quality.