Jersey Water

Source: Energy Digital

Date :1/4/2008 4:33:52 AM

With campaigns to raise awareness of water conservation and investments in major water processing equipment, Jersey Water has been supplying water to the island since the nineteenth century

Written by Lucy Mowatt and Produced by Alex Smith

The island of Jersey has no natural ground water reserves and no links to external water supplies. As such, it relies mainly on the rain which falls between November and April and is stored in reservoirs.

The utility company Jersey Water has developed a number of systems to overcome these problems and has implemented marketing campaigns to highlight the importance of conserving water on a day-to-day basis. Howard Snowden has worked for the company for 16 years, ten of which have seen him supervising these strategies as Managing Director of the company. He explains how Jersey Water plans to save water and its public information schemes.

Since it was established in 1882 as The New Jersey Waterworks, the company has constantly developed and changed. This is because the island’s population has grown and water supplies have become stretched, while the pipes have aged and needed to be replaced. In 2004, the company rebranded to become Jersey Water. “The new name is a bit more user friendly,” explains Snowden. “The other name was a bit of a mouthful, so we changed it and introduced a new logo.”

The business is a private company, although 74 percent of the shares have been held by the States of Jersey government since 1981. The rest of the shares are held by private individuals on the island and Mr Snowden states that the situation does not change very often. “It gives us some stability. We consult with our major shareholder on strategy, capital expenditure and the way we plan to move forward. As such, we have a stable majority shareholder.”

The turnover figure also reflects this stability. As a company with one core business, Jersey Water’s turnover is mainly affected by inflation, rather than increased sales. “In 2006 our turnover was £12.3 million. In broad terms, the figure increases with inflation so it’s generally only two to five percent per annum.”

As a major utility company, Jersey Water is one of the largest landowners on the island. It owns a number of facilities across Jersey, which have their own specific functions. There are six main storage reservoirs, a standby desalination plant, ten raw water pumping stations, two treatment works, two treated water service reservoirs and seven treated water pumping stations; these are in addition to a laboratory, workshop and the head office.

Major investments

The standby desalination plant was set up in 1970, with the aim of providing an additional water supply when the island needs it. The site is able to convert seawater into drinking water for the inhabitants of the island, although it is rarely used. “The plant has on average been operated once every three years,” says Snowden. “It’s a standby plant, and it’s my hope that I never have to use it.” This is because the plant costs around £2000 per day to run and it uses two megawatts of energy, meaning that it is very energy intensive. In 1999, the original process plant was replaced by a new membrane reverse osmosis plant, which cost Jersey Water in the region of £5 million.

This investment is in addition to those being made into the piping network across the island. “This is very costly,” the Managing Director explains. “Water is the oldest of all the utilities, and like similar companies, we have a lot of ageing facilities and we have to spend a lot of money on replacing old pipes which are giving poor water quality.” Not only will this help to raise water quality, but it will also reduce the amount of water lost due to leaks and burst pipes.

Jersey Water can help its customers to identify leaking pipes on their property too, and although it does not have the capacity to repair the pipe, it can help the customer. The company also runs a campaign to promote the lagging of pipes so that they are protected throughout the winter months.

Water conservation

Wasted water is something that Jersey Water is actively trying to combat. It has a number of procedures in place, which are helping on this front. “We’ve currently got around a third of our customers on a water meter and at the moment we will install them free of charge,” Snowden explains. Since 2003 all new connections to Jersey’s water network are ready equipped with a meter, which accurately monitors water usage and makes sure that customers are charged correctly for what is used. This encourages customers to look at what they use and keeps usage at a minimum while also saving money.

Education is another means by which Jersey Water aims to reduce water consumption. “Education is a very important part of the public relations campaign for water management. We offer guided tours of our facilities to school parties and we also now provide education packs to school children,” Howard Snowden says. He says that it is beneficial to teach children while they are young because they tend to remember it. He goes on to say that children tend to go home and tell their parents about what they have learned, passing the information on.

Quality controls

The quality of the island’s water supply is constantly monitored too. Jersey Water’s laboratory is fully equipped to maintain water standards within the parameters set by the government. It has three laboratory staff, a water quality manager plus staff, and three people who take water samples from source to tap. “In 2006,” Howard Snowden proudly states, “we carried out 18,500 analyses of water samples.” The results of these tests showed that 99.97 percent of all samples were compliant with standards set not only by the government in Jersey, but also the governing bodies in England and Wales. This is in comparison to a level of 99.96 percent achieved by water companies in the UK.

The environment is also very important to Jersey Water; at least two of its reservoirs are considered to be areas of natural beauty. In order to preserve the beauty of the island, it has also implemented a new distribution scheme, which is fed by gravity; “We made savings of about £45,000 in energy using these new systems,” Howard Snowden says. It also earned the company the Green Apple Award in 2006, which was presented by the UK Green Organisation.

Jersey Water also supports the Jersey Natural Trust and the Jersey branch of the Men of the Trees, a company encouraging the protection of trees.

Going forward, Jersey Water intends to raise the profile of water management systems and wants all customers to switch to water meters. This will strengthen the company’s position as an independent utility and will ensure that the people of Jersey consistently receive safe and high quality water.