How will Havant Thicket Reservoir operate if the water recycling scheme goes ahead?

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You’re a Portsmouth Water customer, living in Havant. Will you drink water from the new Havant Thicket Reservoir?

The short answer is yes – but only in drought or emergency situations. At all other times, your water will come from our usual sources. This won’t change, even if the recycled water scheme, known as the Hampshire Water Transfer & Water Recycling Project, goes ahead. However, we may need to use the reservoir more regularly in future, depending on climate change and population levels.

How the reservoir would work

Under our current approved plans, the reservoir will be filled up in winter with water from the Bedhampton Springs. This spring water would otherwise be wasted and would flow straight out to sea.

In many summers and winters, we won’t need to take any water from the reservoir. It’s only in drought or emergencies, when our neighbour, Southern Water, reduces the amount it takes from precious chalk streams in its supply area, that the reservoir is needed. In these times, our customers will receive water from the reservoir and we can then share 21 million litres a day from our other supplies with Southern Water.

Recycled water

If the water recycling proposals go ahead, the reservoir would continue to be filled in winter by the springs. It would also be supplemented each day with recycled water. Southern Water would remove the same amount each day as has been added, via a new pipeline it’s building between Havant and their Water Treatment Works near Southampton. This will keep its pipelines and treatment processes running smoothly and make sure the water levels in the reservoir are stable.

In drought or emergency conditions, Southern Water could take up to 90 million litres of water each day via its new pipeline. Our customers would also receive water from the reservoir under these conditions, via our Farlington Water Treatment Works. This would enable us to share a further 21 million litres per day with Southern Water (as set out above).

Southern Water needs to find nearly 200 million litres of water per day to protect the wildlife that relies on our rare chalk stream habitats, and, as you can see, Havant Thicket Reservoir could provide more than half of this.

Please visit our further webpage to learn what safeguards are already in place to protect your drinking water.

You’re a Portsmouth Water customer, living in Havant. Will you drink water from the new Havant Thicket Reservoir?

The short answer is yes – but only in drought or emergency situations. At all other times, your water will come from our usual sources. This won’t change, even if the recycled water scheme, known as the Hampshire Water Transfer & Water Recycling Project, goes ahead. However, we may need to use the reservoir more regularly in future, depending on climate change and population levels.

How the reservoir would work

Under our current approved plans, the reservoir will be filled up in winter with water from the Bedhampton Springs. This spring water would otherwise be wasted and would flow straight out to sea.

In many summers and winters, we won’t need to take any water from the reservoir. It’s only in drought or emergencies, when our neighbour, Southern Water, reduces the amount it takes from precious chalk streams in its supply area, that the reservoir is needed. In these times, our customers will receive water from the reservoir and we can then share 21 million litres a day from our other supplies with Southern Water.

Recycled water

If the water recycling proposals go ahead, the reservoir would continue to be filled in winter by the springs. It would also be supplemented each day with recycled water. Southern Water would remove the same amount each day as has been added, via a new pipeline it’s building between Havant and their Water Treatment Works near Southampton. This will keep its pipelines and treatment processes running smoothly and make sure the water levels in the reservoir are stable.

In drought or emergency conditions, Southern Water could take up to 90 million litres of water each day via its new pipeline. Our customers would also receive water from the reservoir under these conditions, via our Farlington Water Treatment Works. This would enable us to share a further 21 million litres per day with Southern Water (as set out above).

Southern Water needs to find nearly 200 million litres of water per day to protect the wildlife that relies on our rare chalk stream habitats, and, as you can see, Havant Thicket Reservoir could provide more than half of this.

Please visit our further webpage to learn what safeguards are already in place to protect your drinking water.

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  • Share We can't trust you to treat the waste water as it is, so much is dumped untreated so how can we trust you to treat the recycled drinking water? on Facebook Share We can't trust you to treat the waste water as it is, so much is dumped untreated so how can we trust you to treat the recycled drinking water? on Twitter Share We can't trust you to treat the waste water as it is, so much is dumped untreated so how can we trust you to treat the recycled drinking water? on Linkedin Email We can't trust you to treat the waste water as it is, so much is dumped untreated so how can we trust you to treat the recycled drinking water? link

    We can't trust you to treat the waste water as it is, so much is dumped untreated so how can we trust you to treat the recycled drinking water?

    Richard Gregory asked 6 months ago

    We (Portsmouth Water) are a drinking water only company, and Southern Water manages wastewater within our supply area at treatment facilities such as Budds Farm in Havant, Southern’s largest plant. Treated wastewater from Budds Farm is released out to sea, in line with the works’ operating licence.

    We will be in control of the water entering and leaving Havant Thicket Reservoir. We already continuously monitor the quality of water at all of our sites with data automatically captured, analysed and checked in real time to ensure that we maintain excellent water quality that complies with regulatory standards. The same methods and control systems would apply to the water recycling plant that’s proposed by Southern Water, as part of its Hampshire Water Transfer and Water Recycling Project. If there were any issues with the quality of the water being produced at the water recycling centre, the control system would automatically shut the plant down.

    Furthermore, as with all of our water sources, any water from Havant Thicket Reservoir would be treated to meet strict drinking water standards before being supplied to customers.

    In normal conditions, there would be no change to our current arrangements for supply of water to our customers. Our Farlington Water Treatment Works would receive water directly from Bedhampton and Havant springs. The reservoir would not be used to supply Portsmouth Water customers on a routine basis. 

    Under the already approved reservoir scheme, during a drought, spring water stored in the reservoir would be used to supply Portsmouth Water customers, primarily in the Havant and Portsmouth area. This will allow us to share water from our network further west with Southern Water.

    Given this arrangement, if the Hampshire Water Transfer and Water Recycling Project is implemented, Portsmouth Water customers would receive a mixture of spring water and recycled water from Havant Thicket Reservoir in drought and emergency conditions – for example, if we were not able to use our regular sources of water due to an engineering or other issue. Like all UK water companies, we are required to plan for a number of different future scenarios, which take into account changes to population levels, climate change and the need to leave more water in the environment, to benefit nature. In some of these scenarios, recycled water could be used more frequently as a source for Portsmouth Water customers from 2040 and beyond.

    Recycled water

    The water recycling process would be completely separate from stormwater releases, which only occur when a wastewater treatment plant and / or the sewer network are running at full capacity and cannot cope with the much-increased levels of wastewater coming through the system during very wet weather.

    Wastewater treatment plants are regulated by the Environment Agency, which sets the standards by which they operate, both in dry and wet weather conditions. 

    In periods of heavy rain, both sewage and rainwater are collected in ‘combined’ sewers, which transport this mixed water, known as stormwater, to a treatment plant. Once the plant’s main treatment process is at maximum capacity and its stormwater storage tanks are full, heavily diluted, untreated stormwater must be released, either into the sea or a river or stream, to prevent flooding of homes, businesses and other properties.

    Such stormwater releases are permitted under the operating licences granted by the Environment Agency, in the interests of protecting populated areas from flooding.

    Stormwater could never end up in Havant Thicket Reservoir or the drinking water network because the proposed water recycling plant in Havant would take its water feed from the end of the complete wastewater treatment process and not from any stormwater tank or overflow.

    The fully treated wastewater would then be passed through a further water recycling treatment process, including an approach known as reverse osmosis. 

    Recycled water is highly treated, purified water and would be cleaner than the spring water feeding into Havant Thicket Reservoir.