CSO Spill Reduction by Reducing Consented Surface Water Volumes from Industry 3. The FlapstopperTM Pollution Control valve is already in use on a number of commercial and industrial sites to pro-actively divert surface water run-off away from the sewers into surface water drains or SUDS chambers. From the perspective of the Industrial/Commercial site operator, the fast response of the FlapstopperTM , which is typically under 10-seconds, plus its fully automated operation, permits the valve to satisfy their obligations under ISO14001 with respect to environmental protection. As a bonus many who previously paid for a consent licence have been able to make substantial savings by reducing the volume associated with their licence. Only in the event of an emergency such as a spill or fire is the valve called into action to divert the flow to holding ponds, lagoons or simply contain the incident within the drains enabling the spilt item to be safely tankered away. We believe that in urban areas, the active mandating or financial encouragement by water companies of their industrial/commercial customers into the fitting of pollution containment valves like the FlapstopperTM could go a long way to reducing the amount of surface water that actually enters the sewerage network at source. Estimates are that by reducing peak flow in some parts of the network by as little as 20% they could actually reduce the number of CSO discharges by up to 40% and in other areas totally eliminate them altogether. Consequential savings for the water company with regards to fines and bad publicity could be significant, and if approached correctly the cost of implementation could even be either in part or fully funded by the industrial customer who could publicise the use of the system as part of their green credential and integrate within their EMS helping to satisfy the pollution and firewater control part of ISO14001 Finally, there is an additional benefit to water companies through the mandating of the fitting of pollution control valves to industrial and commercial customers sites. Last year's incident involving the cyanide spill on the River Trent, which exposed Severn Trent Water millions of damages and caused bad publicity could have been potentiall averted simply by the fitting of a valve at the outflow from the customers site.
Summary of Actions:
•
Actively encourage industrial / commercial customers to segregation of surface and foul drains and sewers by fitting FlapstopperTM type valves.
•
Threaten to withdraw customer consent licences if they do not introduce and maintain proactive measures/procedures/tools such as the FlapstopperTM to ensure that spills and firewater are contained on site and cannot enter and damage the infrastructure. This requirement is already stated in the Environment Agency PPG28
•
Mandate the automation of existing penstock valves or there replacement with automated valves such as the FlapstopperTM to ensure out of hours 24/7 protection for spills and firewater. Again this is a requirement under the Environment Agency PPG28.
•
Install blocked drain/sewer detectors to deliver live reports of problems before they become incidents.
•
Fit dynamic containment / attenuation valves up stream within the network to modulate the flow and thus reduce the peak flow that enters the CSO. Ideally this should be able to control the level that there is a significant reduction in spill/discharge incidents.