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Adapting to Change: Considerations for Water Recycling and Desalination to Address Future Water Supply Challenges in the UK

25th and 26th February 2020
The Old Courtroom, Brighton, UK
(118 Church St, Brighton BN1 1UD)

 

Old Courtroom lecture hall

The Old Courtoom

 

PLEASE NOTE:

Tickets are sold out however please contact Suzy Armsden s.m.armsden@brighton.ac.uk 01273 642204 to be placed on reserve list.

Synopsis

The world population of 7 billion is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. To meet potable water supply and other urban demands (e.g. landscape irrigation, commercial, and industrial needs), there must be a paradigm shift in our approach to water resources management. Population increases and a dependency on high-water-demand agriculture which are coupled with urbanisation are affecting land use changes that exacerbate water supply challenges. Likewise, sea level rise and increasing intensity and variability of local climate patterns are predicted to alter hydrologic and ecosystem dynamics and composition.

The United Kingdom (UK) with its high population density and in particular the South East of England are clear examples of the challenges described above. Increasing population and as a consequence increasing water demand has led to water resources under some scenarios being over committed. Consequently, the South East of England is not only one of the most water scarce regions in the UK but also Northern Europe. A recent legally binding agreement (Section 20) attempts to balance environmental management and water abstraction on critical surface water sources in Hampshire. The impact being that in periods of severe drought non-traditional sources of water are likely required.

The consequence of utilising alternative water sources is that additional advanced treatment is generally required. As the UK has a legal requirement to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050 a paradigm shift in water resource management is required to meet both increased water supply and decreased emissions. As such this conference will consider the potential for desalination and water recycling technologies and their implementation in the UK, using the South East of England as a case study to augment water resources whilst minimising emissions. International speakers will bring a wealth of experience from across the globe to consider the application of these processes for wider application in the UK. The social, technical and practical aspects of indirect and direct water recycling and desalination technologies will be reviewed as potential alternative or complementary solutions to the future water scarcity challenge.

Speaker Biographies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Hickey, Managing Director (RAPID), Ofwat

Paul Hickey is the Managing Director of RAPID (Regulators Alliance Progressing Infrastructure Development) – a regulatory partnership between Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. RAPID’s goal is firstly to ensure the coordinated delivery of the strategic water resource schemes required to meet the needs of people, the economy and our environment as set out in the National Water Resource Framework. RAPID will also test the regulatory and commercial framework for water resource resilience to ensure it is fit for future needs.

Paul is seconded to RAPID from the Environment Agency where he was Deputy Director with oversight of Water Resources for England. Prior to the Environment Agency, Paul worked in the water industry in a variety of regulation and asset management roles.

Paul is a Fellow of the Institute of Water and sits on its Board as well as the South West Area Committee.

Ian McAulay  joined Southern Water as CEO in January 2017 and was appointed to the Board from 1 February. Ian has more than 30 years of global water and environmental experience and a significant record of achievement operating in both publicly quoted FTSE 100/250 companies and privately held enterprises. Ian holds an honours degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering and is a Chartered Member of the ICE, CIWEM.

Throughout his career he has managed major utility, construction and consulting businesses in the UK, Belgium, India and the USA. He has enhanced this practical experience with professional executive education, most notably at Harvard Business School. He has extensive experience in the UK regulated utility, construction and environmental services sectors, holding board positions across a broad range of commercial and statutory organisations. In his previous role he served as an executive director of the Pennon Group plc and chief executive of its subsidiary company, Viridor, one of the largest renewable energy and recycling companies in the UK.

In a non-executive capacity, he served as an independently appointed member of Greater Manchester Authorities Low Carbon Hub Board and Scottish Government’s 2020 Climate Change Board He currently chairs the Greater Brighton Infrastructure Panel. He has also provided expert input to Government Review Groups and Industry Partnerships with particular emphasis on the UK skills agenda and development of future smarter regulation and environmental policy.

 

Melanie Holmer is Brown and Caldwell’s National Water Reuse Leader and has over 20 years of experience in the strategic planning, design, and construction of major water, wastewater, and water reuse projects for a total treatment capacity of over 1 billion gallons per day. Melanie focuses on advanced treatment technologies, regulatory and policy development, and research, including pilot and full-scale trials to support diverse water supply strategies. Melanie serves on the Board of Directors for WateReuse California and is the primary author on the research section of the California Recycled Water Action Plan, and she sits on the technical committees for the WateReuse CA annual conference and the WateReuse Symposium. Melanie received her MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her BS in Environmental Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

 

Allegra da Silva is Brown & Caldwell’s PFAS National Municipal Coordinator and Regional One Water Leader, working to improve water and wastewater treatment, expand the field of water recycling and reuse, and evaluate alternative sources of water. She is working with clients to address the removal of pathogens and emerging contaminants, including 1,4-dioxane, perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), and N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in order to expand alternative water supplies safely for the protection of public health and benefit of the environment. Allegra has nearly two decades’ experience in engineering and public health. Prior to entering the field of consulting, she worked in international development with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). She holds a doctorate in environmental engineering from Yale University and is a licensed Professional Engineer. Her doctoral research on norovirus in wastewater drew from the fields of engineering, microbiology, and epidemiology and was conducted in Colombia, France, and Texas and Connecticut in the US. Her postdoctoral research examined how advances in materials science can be harnessed for low-cost drinking water filtration.

 


Stuart Khan is a Professor in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UNSW Australia. He is the leader of the Trace Chemical Contaminants research stream at the UNSW Water Research Centre. Khan is also a Hans Fischer Fellow at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. He has received funding for over 30 major competitive research projects from Australian, US and European funding agencies. He has published over 150 peer reviewed journal articles on issues relating to trace chemical contaminants in drinking water, wastewater and recycled water. Khan is a member of the Water Quality Advisory Committee (WQAC) to the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). He is the leader of the ‘Organic Chemical Contaminants’ reference group of the WQAC and, in this role, he led the revision of all aspects involving organic chemical contaminants in the 2011 revision of the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Khan has also made significant contributions to other Australian water quality guidelines, particularly the National Guidelines for Water Recycling. He also contributed to the development of WHO guidelines for potable water reuse.

 

Marcus Rink is the Chief Inspector of Drinking Water, appointed in August 2015. He has worked for the Department of Environment, (DEFRA), in various roles for 20 years. As Chief Inspector he provides independent scrutiny of the water industry ensuring the safety and quality of water and public confidence through a robust regulatory framework. His role encompasses a range of statutory and non-statutory functions, discharging the duties of the Secretary of State for England and the Welsh Government to ensure companies meet their regulatory requirements and Local Authorities take action in respect of water supplies.

Marcus is a member of: The EU expert group of the Drinking Water Directive; The Advisory EU Microbiology Expert Group; The International Network for Delivery of Regulation; The European Network of Drinking Water Regulators and the Chair of the Standing Committee of Analysts who produce independent methodology for water and environmental laboratories. Previously Marcus was the Chair of the Drinking Water Group and a member of the Environmental Water Group for Public Health England at the London 2012 Olympics.

Marcus is a Chartered Biologist, a Chartered Scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health. His career in the Health Authority, Public Analysts, Severn Trent Water and at the Drinking Water Inspectorate spans over 30 years of Regulation and Enforcement, health, environment and water.

 

Dr Jeremy Dudley is a Senior Process Engineer, who has worked in the field of water reuse since 2015, looking at IPR and DPR with treated wastewater, and also looking at the reuse opportunities with other water sources, including looking at the willingness to adopt such systems. His involvement with AOP was model-based on wastewater treatment, focusing mainly on recalcitrant.

Jeremy has also led projects investigating lead in drinking water in the UK and overseas and has carried out a review of the use of phosphate dosing at water works for lead control, including an assessment on the sustainability of phosphate supplies. He has also worked on other aspects of chemicals in the water industry including; Mathematical modelling of the speciation or iron, aluminium and phosphorus, including precipitates, for chemical phosphorus removal; The impact of certain organics spilling into estuaries; and the impact of certain metal compounds being discharged, through fire-fighting water, to either a river course or sewage works.

Jeremy has long-standing expertise in the modelling of sewage treatment systems and the modelling of processes and hydraulics at sewage and industrial effluent treatment works, both in the UK and overseas. This has included methanol-aided denitrification systems, modifying activated sludge models to predict the fate of methanol through the aeration system; modifying settling processes to study the partitioning of radionuclides; and routine wastewater modelling for air and oxygen activated sludge systems. He regularly runs training courses for users of the WRc software packages and is responsible for the continued development of WRc’s software programs, STOAT, Plan-It STOAT and OTTER, and the software elements for TR61. He developed a programme to compare the power and chemical costs of a large UK utility against the values that would have occurred had they operated following their internal best practice guidelines. Additional mathematical models are currently being added to the treatment processes to better investigate the effect of the best practice guidelines on opex drivers. He has 28 years’ experience of sewage treatment systems, 23 years’ experience of mathematical modelling of sewage treatment systems and pilot work experience with activated sludge and sedimentation.

 

Dr Graeme K Pearce is an Oxford educated membrane technology specialist with more than 35 years’ experience in the membrane industry. After working with BP, Kalsep and Hydranautics in various aspects of membrane R&D and system design, Graeme formed Membrane Consultancy Associates (MCA) in 2005. MCA works with a broad spectrum of users and providers of membrane technology on performance improvement, dispute resolution, and as an expert witness. Graeme also works with new entrants and prospective investors. He is well known in the field of water and membranes through workshops, teaching, lectures and publications including his own book (see www.membraneconsultancy.com).

 

 

 

 

 

Ron Hofmann is a professor in the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he holds an Industrial Research Chair in Advanced Drinking Water Treatment Technologies. Much of his research focuses on disinfection and oxidation, with an emphasis on byproduct formation. He routinely works with consultants and utilities in the design and optimization of new treatment methods, and is a regular advisor with different levels of government on drinking water regulations. He is currently serving as the President of the International UV Association.

 

 

 

 

 

Varsha Wylie is a Principal Process Engineer with Southern Water and has 18 years of experience in the design and construction of water and wastewater treatment plants. Varsha has worked extensively on UK projects for a number of water companies, including Anglian Water, Severn Trent and South West Water. Before joining Southern Water, Varsha spent 2 years managing the delivery of design projects in Pune (India) for international water utilities based in Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East and the UK. She also spent 3 years in Dallas (Texas, USA) as a client service manager and technical delivery lead working on projects for North Texas water utility clients. Varsha received her MSc in Environmental Technology from the University of Manchester and she is a Chartered Chemical Engineer with the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Dr. Art Umble leads the Global Wastewater Practice for Stantec Consulting, focusing on municipal and industrial wastewater treatment technologies, with an emphasis on converting waste streams to value streams and is a national leader in initiatives involving environmentally sustainable systems.  He provides technical analysis and support to design teams for new and rehabilitated wastewater treatment plants, with a focus on nutrient removal and recovery facilities, process optimization for treatment capacity and energy management.  He serves in numerous state and national forums and stakeholder work groups related to emerging treatment technologies, sustainability in treatment and environmental regulation.  In addition to consulting, Dr. Umble’s experience includes university teaching and managing a publicly owned water and wastewater utility.

 

 

 

 

 

Meyrick Gough As Technical Planning Director for WRSE Meyrick’s key responsibility is the delivery of the development of the technical workstreams and the regional plan.

He has worked in the water industry for over 27 years in a range of roles. Originally joining Southern Water as a hydrologist and water quality modeller in 1992; he has had a variety of roles within assets, operations and water quality before leading the development of four Water Resource Management Plans (WRMPs) and drought plans for the company.

He has driven the industry-leading work on applying stochastic modelling techniques to the WRMP process so that plans consider a wider range of future droughts, a key approach to increase resilience; Incorporated real option appraisal method for scheduling schemes in WRMP plans; promoted universal metering to help lower demands and wrote one of the first system simulation models for the Company’s supply area.

 

Graham Bateman is Lead Technical Manager, Water Process with Southern Water and has more than 20 years’ experience in water and wastewater treatment, desalination, reuse and industrial systems. Having completed his Masters in Water Pollution Control Technology from Cranfield University, he has previously worked for Anglian Water (where he completed grey water research), Thames Water (where he worked on London’s desalination plant). Graham also has international consultancy experience as a design consultant, technical reviewer, owner’s engineer and lender’s engineer on desalination projects. He helped to commission the world’s first 3-pass RO plant in Saudi Arabia and was project director for the National Centre of Excellence in Desalination, Australia. He worked on Australia’s first pilot effluent reuse trial in Perth and is a former Member of the Australian Water Association’s Water Journal Editorial Committee.

 

Andy Dunn joined Thames Water in January 2019 to lead the Science and Engineering teams, with responsibility for technical strategy and oversight of regulatory compliance, ensuring the continued provision of great drinking water and exceptional environmental protection. Prior to this he held several senior roles, including leading the European Water Business, at Jacobs, a global engineering and technology firm. During his career Andy has held various technical and strategic roles with both United Utilities and Southern Water.

 

Dr. Kati Bell is Brown and Caldwell’s Director of Water Strategy, leading the conception and implementation of BCs Research and Development program to support delivery of innovation to BC clients in all water sectors that BC serves. In addition to a more than 25-year career during which she has guided treatment projects with over 4 billion gallons per day of treatment capacity, she has provided significant contributions to the water industry through development of guidance for best practices and regulation of reuse. She managed the 2012 US EPA Guidelines and negotiated the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement for the 2017 EPA Potable Reuse Compendium and continues to work with various local regulatory agencies to establish frameworks for implementation of reuse. Kati also currently serves on the Board of Directors of the WateReuse Association and is a past-president of the International UV Association.

 

Brent Alspach holds both BS and MS degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University.  Brent joined Arcadis in 1997 and serves as the company’s Director of Applied Research.  He is the immediate past President of the American Membrane Technology Association (AMTA) and Chair of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) Water Quality & Technology Division Board of Trustees.  He also Chaired both the 2016 and 2018 AWWA International Symposium on Potable Reuse, a role he’ll reprise for the 2020 event, scheduled for February 10-11 in Atlanta, GA.  Working with the WateReuse Association, Mr. Alspach contributed to the development of the draft USEPA Water Reuse Action Plan.  He is also a contributor to the AWWA Manuals of Practice for reverse osmosis / nanofiltration (M46), microfiltration / ultrafiltration (M53), membrane technology in reuse applications (M62), seawater desalination (M61), and inland desalination and concentrate management (M69).  His work regarding the integration of desalinated water into existing distribution systems, conducted for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, was honored with the Best Paper award at the 2012 AWWA Membrane Technology Conference (MTC), and his work on zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) garnered the runner-up award for Best Paper at the 2016 MTC.  One of his current reuse focus areas is the utilization of stormwater as a source of supply for municipal-scale potable reuse and building industry institutional knowledge.

 

Dr. Wolfgang Gernjak (Department of Technology and Evaluation at Catalan Institute for Water Research, ICRA, Girona, Spain)
Dr. Wolfgang Gernjak completed his PhD study on solar AOPs in 2006 graduating from BOKU Vienna. In 2008, after having worked for 6 years at Plataforma Solar de Almería, Spain, on solar chemical and thermal processes, he relocated to the Advanced Water Management Centre at The University of Queensland, Australia, where he led the Drinking and Recycled Water Research Program, dedicated mostly to innovation and optimization of industrial scale membrane and oxidation processes. Since 2014, he leads the research line Water Supply and Advanced Treatment at the Catalan Institute for Water Research, Spain. Since 2015 he holds a permanent position after having been awarded a highly competitive ICREA research professor position. In the past 15 years, he published >100 SCI papers with >6000 citations. He supervised 8 PhD students to graduation and has led numerous competitive research projects.

 

Achim Ried obtained his Diploma in Chemistry at the University of Marburg (Germany) in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Environmental Chemistry (Thesis: “Heavy metals and complex building agents in municipal waste water treatment – analytic, reaction behaviour and treatment possibilities”) in 1992. Achim Ried´s actual appointment is with Xylem as Manager R&D Disinfection and Oxidation. He is member in different water related organisations e.g. IWA (Member of the German National Committee), International Ozone Association (past International President), Association of German Chemists (GDCh) and active member of working groups of German Water Associations (DWA, DVGW).

His research interests are in the fields of water and wastewater treatment and Water Reuse. He was involved as partner in several Research Projects funded by EU (e.g. EU AquaNES (2016-2019) “Combined engineered and natural solutions for Water Reuse”; EU LIMPID (2011-2014) “Nano composite materials for Photo reactors”), Germany (BMBF Transrisk (2011-2014) “Risk management of Chemicals and Pathogens of Concern in the water cycle” ) and US (e.g. US WRF 11-02 (2012 – 2014) “Equivalency of Advanced Treatment Trains for Potable Reuse”, US WRF 11-01 (2012 – 2014) “Monitoring for Reliability and Process Control of Potable Reuse Applications”).

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Royal Pavilion

Day 1 – 25th February 2020
08:00 – 08:45 Registration (Coffee and Pastries Provided)
08:45 – 09:00 Welcome
Theme 1: A Global Challenge from a Local Perspective
09:00 – 09:30 Keynote Presentation: Paul Hickey (RAPID, UK)
09:30 – 10:00 Southern Water’s Water Demand Challenge:Ian McAulay (Southern Water, UK)
10:00 – 10:30 An Introduction and Overview to Water Recycling: Melanie Holmer (Brown and Caldwell, USA)
10:30 – 11:15 Coffee Break
Theme 2: Global Perspectives on Water Recycling Augmentation and Regulation
11:15 – 11:40 United States Experience and Perspective to Risk Regulation and Technology: Allegra Da Silva (Brown and Caldwell, USA)
11:40 – 12:05 Australian Experience and Perspectives of Potable Water Recycling: Stuart Khan (University of New South Wales, Australia)
12:05 – 12:30 The Australian and WHO Guidance and Approaches to Risk-Based Regulation: Stuart Khan (University of New South Wales, Australia)
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch  Please Follow Directions to Al Duomo (7 Pavilion Buildings Brighton BN1 1EE)
Theme 3: Risk Based Approaches and Development of Critical Information
14:00 – 14:30 Responding to the Challenge of Change: Risks and the Regulatory Response:  Marcus Rink (DWI, UK )
14:30 – 15:00 The UK Perspective to Risk: Current and Future Considerations (PCCP and AOP DBPs): Dr Jeremy Dudley (Water Research Centre, UK)
15:00 – 15:30 Bench Scale to Full Scale: Approaches to Data Collection: Ian Mayor-Smith (University of Brighton, UK)
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee Break
Theme 4: Technology Considerations: Selection and Verification
16:00 – 16:45 Membrane Applications and Limitations: Graeme Pearce (Membrane Consultancy Associates, UK)
16:45 – 17:15 Full Advanced Treatment (FAT): Advanced Oxidation Processes the benefits and Challenges: Ronald Hofmann (University of Toronto, Canada)
17:15 – 17:45 Technology Assessment for the Western Grid: Varsha Wylie (Southern Water, UK)
17:45 – 17:55 Final Remarks: Ian Mayor-Smith (University of Brighton, UK)
18:30 – 20:00 Networking and Nibbles (Pavilion Kitchen + Royal Pavilion Tour)
20:00 – Late Dinner (The Royal Pavilion Banqueting Room) Tickets Required
Day 2 – 26th February 2020
08:30 – 09:00 Registration (Coffee and Pastries Provided)
Theme 5: The role of technology in our current and future experience
09:00 – 09:30

Keynote Presentation: Art Umble (Stantec, USA)

09:30 – 10:00 The Future of Water Resources Management: Meyrick Gough (Water Resources South East)
10:00-10:40 Desalination’s Current and Future Place within the UK: Graham Bateman (Southern Water, UK) and Ciaran Heaney (Thames Water, UK)
10:40 – 11:15 Coffee Break
Theme 6: Treatment Optimisation and Future Technologies
11:15 – 11:40 Alternative Water Recycling Treatment Trains: Kati Bell (Brown and Caldwell, USA)
11:40 – 12:05 Innovative Alternatives for Enhanced Recovery of NF/RO Systems:  Brent Alspach (Arcaidis, USA)
12:05 – 12:30 Developing a Chemical-Free AOP for the Removal of Micropollutants from Water and Wastewater: Wolfgang Gernjak
12:30 – 12:55 Alternative Methods to Ozone Generation: Achim Ried (Xylem, Germany)
12:55 – 13:45 Panel Discussion

Conference Concludes

PLEASE NOTE:

Tickets are now sold out to be placed on reserve list please contact Suzy Armsden s.m.armsden@brighton.ac.uk or call 01273 642204

SPONSORSHIP :

 

We are pleased to announce that Suez are sponsoring our Conference dinner Company logo

 

 

 

Refreshments during the conference are being sponsored by Centre for Aquatic Environments

 

 

 

 

If you would like to sponsor lunch or the networking reception  please contact Suzy Armsden e-mail s.m.armsden@brighton.ac.uk

Lunch

Networking reception

In Partnership with:

 

Accommodation: 

Special conference rates have been negotiated please click here

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Suzanne Armsden • November 21, 2019


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