Why Your Water Supplier Must Help Your Contingency Planning

It is easy to think of a business water supplier as simply doing for your company what a domestic supplier does for your home, providing a steady supply of water literally on tap, only with bigger pipes because you need more of it.

However, matters are not always so simple. Whereas a problem like a burst water main could disrupt household supplies for a few hours and be inconvenient, for a company, that means a loss of production – and therefore income.

The situation can be worse in the event of shortages, something nobody can ignore following the recent dry spring and summer. If climate change is to bring more regular, elongated dry spells like this, that means drought is a growing risk and companies that need a lot of water will need to have contingency plans in place.

In practice, this means having an alternative means of accessing water if supplies are interrupted or a drought means that it cannot be guaranteed.

A Lack Of Planning.

Research by Alphaeus has highlighted the troubling fact that many commercial water customers have no such plans in place.

Its survey of members of the UK Food and Drink Federation has found that even though 94 per cent say a reliable water supply is essential for their operations, 61 per cent do not have a contingency plan for cases where their water supply is interrupted.

The article added that with climate change being a rising concern and the Environment Agency warning that England alone needs an extra five million litres of water a day by 2055, businesses face major risks going forward.

This is, evidently, an issue businesses need to tackle, but they may not have the expertise to do it alone and the best kind of business water supplier is one that can help, using expertise and coordinating a plan that can integrate with the infrastructure currently in use.

For example, having supplied the piping, valves and associated infrastructure that would normally supply a business with water directly from the company’s normal sources, which would originate in reservoirs, rivers and aquifers, an effective supplier might be able to make attachments between this and an auxiliary source such as a spring or a well.

Contingencies In Kent.

A real-life example of one business working with its water supplier to help manage its water resources is not a food or drinks firm, but a rugby club. The BBC recently reported on how Gravesend Rugby Club in Kent has used a grant from Southern Water to dig a borehole and use rainwater harvesting.

The club has three rugby pitches and a cricket square to look after and while the use of rainwater harvesting may be useful for watering pitches, but not for producing food and drink products, the digging of a borehole to extract groundwater is something that can supply water for a food or drinks manufacturer.

To give a past example, before brewer Boddingtons moved production away from its famous Strangeways Brewery in Manchester in 2007, the site used a well to supply water. The brewery had opened in 1778, long before the Thirlmere and Haweswater reservoirs started supplying the city.

Similarly, many distilleries, being located in rural areas, are able to access water from adjacent sources, be they streams or wells.

However, even some of these rural locations might start to find their surface water supplies become scarce, particularly in the southern half of the country, which is anticipated to become the driest, while also having to deal with projected increases in population.

More Reservoirs Are Not The Whole Solution.

Some might argue that the only solution that is really needed is more reservoirs and this has certainly been an issue for the government after taking office last year. It did so having flagged up the fact that no new reservoirs had been built in the last 30 years and there are now plans for nine, with work already underway on one at Havant Thickett in Hampshire.

However, while this might be part of the solution, it may not be all of it. Partly this is because a country with more reservoirs but dry weather will end up with more half-full reservoirs, diminishing the benefits. But there is also the practical reality that some projects may take many years to get through planning and construction.

Instead of waiting for more reservoirs to be completed and operational, having water contingencies, be it wells and boreholes or storage tanks for extra water, could give your company a reliable backup. That way, if there is a problem, be it a drought or a more temporary issue like a damaged pipeline, you will still have lots of water to draw on.