Sustainable innovation is key to meeting our water supply needs
Following 3 years of campaigning by the Water Matters community (which includes Havant Climate Alliance) we still need to persuade Southern Water to look at innovative ways to capture and store water, rather than the expensive and carbon-intensive plans they have for recycling effluent at Budds farm and pumping it into Havant Thicket Reservoir then on another 40 km to Otterbourne
We believe they need to work with the changes which are forecast for our climate. The climate models tell us that we will be getting wetter winters, which will lead to more flooding, yet in the UK we only capture 1% of that free water for drinking water supply. This is a wasted opportunity. More reservoirs are an obvious solution, but in other countries they already capture that free water and pump it underground to store in confined aquifers, where it remains available to abstract whenever the water is needed. Why won’t Southern Water consider these options seriously?
Abstracting water when river levels are high in winter is a great solution which could help to reduce flood risk, while also allowing free water to be stored in a sustainable way underground, where it is not subject to evaporation, will not have any adverse environmental impact, and from where it can be pumped out whenever it is needed in dry summers.
Water Matters have been pressing Southern Water to think ‘outside the box’ and investigate aquifer storage solutions where they have already identified the potential for aquifer storage as an innovative way of creating storage close to where the water is needed. Around the turn of the millennium Southern Water identified many aquifers in Hampshire and Sussex with the potential for storage, but these solutions have been ‘parked’ on the basis that not enough is known about them. Now is the time for Southern Water to dust off these option and invest in their investigation and development.
As aquifer storage does not require large infrastructure, just deep boreholes and connecting pipelines, these schemes should be much cheaper and quicker to implement than the other high energy, high carbon solution in Hampshire currently proposed by the Company, which must operate 365 days a year and requires daily pumping along multiple pipelines including the 40km pipeline from Havant to Otterbourne.
Customer surveys conducted by Southern Water show that the public want more natural solutions to our water supply problems. Aquifer storage provides a more sustainable solution that provides multiple benefits to the environment and society. Providing exactly the kind of ecosystem services approach promoted by government and Wildlife Trusts for our river catchments.
While each option would only provide relatively small volumes of water per day, developing multiple aquifer storage solutions around the region, wherever the natural geology provides the opportunity as a priority, could offer a solution to protecting our chalk streams from damaging abstraction more quickly.
Another innovation could be abstracting water from our rivers at the tidal limit. We are pleased that Southern Water have now committed to investigate moving their water abstraction on the River Itchen to the tidal interface at Woodmill, a solution that would immediately protect more than 12km of the River Itchen and Itchen Navigation from abstraction. With Southern Water having reached an agreement to purchase Woodmill to deliver significant biodiversity improvements to help offset damage caused by the current upstream abstraction at Otterbourne, this also opens up the opportunity for the Company to look at new innovative ways of abstracting fresh water at the tidal limit, before it becomes saline, without causing any adverse impact on fish and eel migration up and down the estuary.
Investigating just one aquifer storage scheme in the next 15 years across Hampshire and Sussex as currently planned is just not enough, we need Southern Water to lead the way and show greater ambition in progressing these more innovative sustainable solutions that take advantage of our natural geology and climate change.
Grainne Rason – Environment & Water Lead at Havant Borough Council (Green Party Leader & Emsworth Councillor)
Aquifer Storage provides exactly the kind of innovative solution we urgently need which works with climate change to meet our water supply needs without damaging the environment.
Michael Lind (Liberal Democrat & Bedhampton Councillor)
We want Southern Water to give a high priority to the investigation of Aquifer Storage schemes across the region. Investigating just one scheme in the next 15 years shows a lack of ambition to find innovative, cheaper and sustainable solutions.
Amy Redsull, Labour Councillor for Leigh Park Hermitage and Cabinet lead for Housing.
We desperately need innovative and cost effective methods that have little to no impact on our local environment. Protecting biodiversity and preserving access to water for future generations must be at the forefront of everyone’s minds. I truly believe that investigating all available alternatives is paramount to finding a solution.
Havant Climate Alliance 