Here’s a round-up of the latest news regarding Yorkshire Water and Thames Water:

Yorkshire Water highlight benefits of staying well hydrated

A YouGov survey has found that people living in the East Riding of Yorkshire drink on average less than one litre of pure water per day, (Source, Yorkshire Coast Radio News). Research cites water as the ideal lubrication to keep the body working properly. The research further states that if we don’t drink enough of it we become dehydrated, our bodies see this as a threat to survival and retains fluid as a consequence, causing weight gain and bloating. Apparently our favourite aperitifs tea, coffee and coke only makes the problem worse because they act as diuretics which drives water out of the body causing even more dehydration, (Source, Closer). Medical research says that by increasing water intake by 1.5 litres a day, over the course of one year this could burn up an extra 17,400 calories, equating to a weight loss of five pounds. Some foods are made up of ninety per cent water and include, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and broccoli, which will help meet daily water intake targets. Thanks to YouGov and Yorkshire Water  for bringing this to our attention.

Yorkshire Water helps Salmon Project in Sheffield

Not only is Yorkshire Water looking after people in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the company is also helping to re-introduce Salmon into Sheffield city centre for the first time in over one hundred years. They have given forty-five thousand pounds to the Don Catchment River Trust. The money will be used to create a “fish super highway” between the River Don in Sheffield and spawning grounds high up in the Pennines, (Source, The Star). The project will involve creating fish passages on weirs that currently block salmon from swimming upstream to spawning ground. The weirs were built some decades ago to harness water power for industrial or navigational purposes. What a great scheme, lets wish them luck.

Thames Water Fined One Million For polluting a canal in Hertfordshire

Discharges of polluting matter from Tring sewage treatment works, (STW) have entered the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire (Source theconstructionindex). Thames Water Utilities has been ordered to pay an eye-watering one million pounds.

This is the highest ever fine for a water company in a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency. St Albans Crown Court ordered to pay a fine of one million costs of eighteen thousand one hundred and thirteen pounds and eight pence and a victim surcharge of one hundred and twenty pounds.

His Honour Judge Andrew Bright QC said “The time has now come for the courts to make clear that very large organisations such as (Thames Water) really must bring reforms and improvements for which they say they are striving, because if they do not the sentences passed upon them for environmental offences will be sufficiently severe to have a significant impact on their finances.

The problems were, according to the same source, poorly performing inlet screens which caused equipment at the works to block, leading to sewage, sludge and debris to discharge into the canal.

Thames Water Cuts Incident Rate by Twenty-Four per-cent in Two Years

Some good news for Thames Water, they have managed to cut their incident rate by twenty-four per-cent in the past two years. This as a result of revamping its road risk management programme.

Thames Water have introduced an online risk assessment, along with e-learning modules, on-the-road training and a driver behaviour point system, (Source, FleetNews). The online risk assessment was originally rolled out to cash allowance drivers and those in a company vehicle, however, it has since been rolled out to anyone that does business mileage.

A clever strategy by Thames Water, as the fleet consists of three hundred cars and one thousand five hundred vans which cover a massive geographical area ­­– 5,000 square miles across London and the Thames Valley and clocks up twenty million miles each year, according to the same source.

Cutting accidents and getting the workforce engaged in this type of process has obviously worked for Thames Water, watch this space for further information.