ST Classification: UNMARKED

Dear Barry,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding, it appears that your original request did not arrive into the inbox to action.

We now acknowledge receipt of your message on 07 November 2023, and given the time already elapsed, we will make every effort to expedite our response to you.

Kind regards
Severn Trent EIR Team
Severn Trent Plc (registered number 2366619) and Severn Trent Water Limited (registered number 2366686) (together the "Companies") are both limited companies registered in England & Wales with their registered office at Severn Trent Centre, 2 St John's Street, Coventry, CV1 2LZ This email (which includes any files attached to it) is not contractually binding on its own, is intended solely for the named recipient and may contain CONFIDENTIAL, legally privileged or trade secret information protected by law. If you have received this message in error please delete it and notify us immediately by telephoning +44 2477715000. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, distribute, reproduce, retransmit, retain or rely on any information contained in this email. Please note the Companies reserve the right to monitor email communicationsin accordance with applicable law and regulations. To the extent permitted by law, neither the Companies or any of their subsidiaries, nor any employee, director or officer thereof, accepts any liability whatsoever in relation to this email including liability arising from any external breach of security or confidentiality or for virus infection or for statements made by the sender as these are not necessarily made on behalf of the Companies. Reduce waste! Please consider the environment before printing this email

ST Classification: UNMARKED

Dear Barry,

Thank you for your recent Environmental Information Request, please find our response outlined below, where we have included your original questions for context.

(a) The full time and date logs between showing clearly when the water was and was not abstracted, also the rate at which it was abstracted throughout. Spreadsheet format is fine for such data.

Our Boughton Water Treatment Works (WTW) abstracts water from the River Dee via multiple pumps. The abstracted water then combines into a raw water main, where all flow is channelled through a flow meter. Daily readings of the flow meter are recorded for the purposes of measuring the total daily volume of water that is abstracted, this data is returned to the Environment Agency as part of an annual return.

The telemetry system utilised onsite visualises (in graph format) the live flow rates throughout the day, which enables the operational team to appropriately manage the abstraction volume into the works, as required. Unfortunately, due to the inherent design of this system, the data is not extractable in a format that we can easily provide. This telemetry system was installed by the previous owner of the site, Dee Valley Water, and we have since promoted investment to upgrade the telemetry system in the future.

We are able to provide you with the total daily abstraction flow readings for the site, taken from the daily meter readings as outlined above, please find this attached to the response. This data has been provided from the reporting years 2018-19 onwards, when aligns with Boughton WTW migrating ownership from their previous owners, Dee Valley Water, to Severn Trent.

(b) The full reasons why the water was or was not abstracted or was abstracted at a reduced quantity. Be open and complete in your explanation and be sure that you do not omit, for example, but this is not a complete list: details of water quality whether chemical, physical, biological, microbiological or sewage spills upstream: or any other factors such as: meteorology, tides, sporting events, and water supply demand or water supply shortage or river water levels. Say where all of your data used here comes from, and whether from outside your organisation or inside, for example if you use continuous water chemistry sampling internally please say using what equipment, where, at what frequency and whether the devices or methodologies etc are of UKAS or other standards. Include all integrative or predictive methodologies such as flowdown calculations for upstream pollution, or flow up calculations for tidal stream pollution, whether and if so what algorithms you use to predict water quality problems that might cause you to reduce or shut off abstraction.

The abstraction pumps for Boughton WTW do not run continuously, meaning that we do not always abstract water from the River Dee. The abstraction pumps can be turned off for a number of reasons, which we have elaborated upon below.

Tidal River
The River Dee at the point of abstraction is tidal, resulting in brackish sea water mixing with the fresh river water. This typically occurs when the river is above 8.5 metres, during these periods the abstraction is turned off until the river returns to its normal condition. Please refer to the link below for details of the tidal schedule of the River Dee. High and Low Water Times and Heights: https://ntslf.org/tides/tidepred.

Operational
Although Boughton WTW is designed and operated to treat the river water during a variety of river quality conditions, there will be periods where the abstraction is turned off due to the quality of the river being below optimal conditions. This can include, for example, where the river is exceptionally turbid following heavy rainfall. This forms part of the normal operation of the site.

Additionally, individual abstraction pumps do not run continuously, their operation is typically alternated between pumps. This will allow windows for maintenance and inspections, if required, and also provides resilience by ensuring additional abstraction pumps are available in the event of a pump failure.

Recording the Reasons for Reducing or Not Abstracting
Although the site will record in the site operational diary the day-to-day activities, including the reasons for reducing or ceasing the abstraction, this is not recorded in a system that is extractable to provide it to you, as it is captured in an operational diary. As such, we are unable to provide you with this information.

(c) The details of the regulatory frameworks under which you operate and whether these are added to or adapted in-house, and if so, precisely how.

Our abstraction is operated in accordance with its abstraction licence, which is issued by the Environment Agency in accordance with the Environment Act 1995, the Water Resources Act 1991, as amended by the Water Act 2003, the Water Resources (Abstraction and Impounding) Regulations 2006, and the Dee and Clwyd River Authority Act 1973.

Best wishes,
Severn Trent EIR Team
Severn Trent Plc (registered number 2366619) and Severn Trent Water Limited (registered number 2366686) (together the "Companies") are both limited companies registered in England & Wales with their registered office at Severn Trent Centre, 2 St John's Street, Coventry, CV1 2LZ This email (which includes any files attached to it) is not contractually binding on its own, is intended solely for the named recipient and may contain CONFIDENTIAL, legally privileged or trade secret information protected by law. If you have received this message in error please delete it and notify us immediately by telephoning +44 2477715000. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, distribute, reproduce, retransmit, retain or rely on any information contained in this email. Please note the Companies reserve the right to monitor email communicationsin accordance with applicable law and regulations. To the extent permitted by law, neither the Companies or any of their subsidiaries, nor any employee, director or officer thereof, accepts any liability whatsoever in relation to this email including liability arising from any external breach of security or confidentiality or for virus infection or for statements made by the sender as these are not necessarily made on behalf of the Companies. Reduce waste! Please consider the environment before printing this email

Hello

Thank you very much for your Environmental Information Regulation (EIR)
request. As per the regulations, we endeavour to provide a response no
later than 20 working days after the date of receipt of the request for
the information. It may take us longer to respond to your request if we
believe the request to be complex, or the volume of information requested
means that we may not be able to comply with the request within the
timeframe. We will however inform you of this prior to the 20-working day
deadline.

Kind regards, Severn Trent, EIR team. Severn Trent Plc (registered number
2366619) and Severn Trent Water Limited (registered number 2366686)
(together the "Companies") are both limited companies registered in
England & Wales with their registered office at Severn Trent Centre, 2 St
John's Street, Coventry, CV1 2LZ. This email (which includes any files
attached to it) is not contractually binding on its own, is intended
solely for the named recipient and may contain confidential, commercially
sensitive or may be covered by legal professional privilege. If you are
not the intended recipient, you must not disclose or use the information
contained in it. If you have received this message in error, please notify
the sender immediately or call us on 03457 500 500. If you are not the
intended recipient you must not use, disclose, distribute, reproduce,
retransmit, retain or rely on any information contained in this email.
Please note the Companies reserve the right to monitor email
communications in accordance with applicable law and regulations. To the
extent permitted by law, neither the Companies or any of their
subsidiaries, nor any employee, director or officer thereof, accepts any
liability whatsoever in relation to this email including liability arising
from any external breach of security or confidentiality or for virus
infection or for statements made by the sender as these are not
necessarily made on behalf of the Companies. Reduce waste! Please consider
the environment before printing this email.

ST Classification: OFFICIAL COMMERCIAL

Dear Barry, 

Thank you for your further requests for information, which we have
answered in line with the Environmental Information Regulations 2004
(“Regulations”). We have outlined our response below, including your
original question for reference.   

Please note the Environmental Information Regulations outline that the
request for an internal review should be made by the requester in
writing within 40 working days after the date of the response. 

Whilst your request for an internal review does not meet the timelines
outlined in the requirements (meaning we do not strictly have to respond
to it), we have considered the points you raised, to understand if we
could provide further details where relevant.

Although I asked for full time and date logs between showing clearly when
the water was and was not abstracted, also the rate at which it was
abstracted throughout, Severn Trent have only provided daily aggregated
figures.

Supplied are not full logs but only daily aggregated logs. Missing are the
times during the day that water was and was not abstracted as well as
details of how fast at each time that it was abstracted.

Recording the Reasons for Reducing or Not Abstracting

In our original response dated 06/12/2023 we outlined that although the
site will record, in the site operational diary, the day-to-day activities
including the reasons for reducing or ceasing the abstraction, this is not
recorded in a system that is extractable to provide it to you, as it is
captured in an operational diary. As such, we are unable to provide you
with this information. This remains the case today.

In line with the regulation 9 which requires public authorities to provide
advice and assistance about requests for environmental information.

Because the data is not accessible, we cannot provide substantive
assistance in this case.  However, we did provide you with the data that
we held for the site at the time of your request, as we thought it may be
helpful to you.  For the avoidance of doubt, the data provided was aligned
to the data that we provide to the regulator annually.

Best Wishes,

Severn Trent EIR Team

Severn Trent Plc (registered number 2366619) and Severn Trent Water
Limited (registered number 2366686) (together the "Companies") are both
limited companies registered in England & Wales with their registered
office at Severn Trent Centre, 2 St John's Street, Coventry, CV1 2LZ. This
email (which includes any files attached to it) is not contractually
binding on its own, is intended solely for the named recipient and may
contain confidential, commercially sensitive or may be covered by legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, you must
not disclose or use the information contained in it. If you have received
this message in error, please notify the sender immediately or call us on
03457 500 500. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use,
disclose, distribute, reproduce, retransmit, retain or rely on any
information contained in this email. Please note the Companies reserve the
right to monitor email communications in accordance with applicable law
and regulations. To the extent permitted by law, neither the Companies or
any of their subsidiaries, nor any employee, director or officer thereof,
accepts any liability whatsoever in relation to this email including
liability arising from any external breach of security or confidentiality
or for virus infection or for statements made by the sender as these are
not necessarily made on behalf of the Companies. Reduce waste! Please
consider the environment before printing this email.