Water treatment plant accident that killed tens of thousands of people Kent According to the regulator, the situation with the lack of water in households was foreseen several weeks before it happened and could have been stopped.
Twenty-four thousand homes in the Tunbridge Wells area were left without drinking water for two weeks from November 30 last year due to an accident at Pembury wastewater treatment centre.
First there was no water flowing from the taps, and then the city issued a boil water notice. Southeast Water told residents the water from their taps was unfit for drinking, feeding pets, brushing teeth, bathing children or bathing with an open wound.
Markus Rink, chief inspector of the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), said the problem began on November 9, when there was a “noticeable deterioration in condition” at the plant.
He told MPs at a select committee hearing that the company had also failed to carry out the proper testing requested by the regulator and that it had also failed to install a filter that would have prevented dangerous heavy metals from entering the water supply.
“This should not have come as a surprise,” he told a hearing of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee (Efra).
The problem arose because a chemical coagulant used to purify drinking water stopped working. Rink said, “It is the opinion of my inspectors that if they had done the proper testing and had the proper data, the original chemical would have worked.”
He said South East Water last carried out relevant tests in July, adding that the company was “going blind” and manually collecting data on how the coagulant worked, rather than using an electronic system that could identify problems in real time.
The aging treatment plant, the only one servicing Tunbridge Wells, has been under a mandatory DWI notice since last year due to the risk of contamination from bacteria and pesticides.
During his defensive response at the select committee hearing, water company chief executive David Hinton suggested the problem had come out of the blue.
He said: “The real problem that caused this was a change in raw water chemistry that we haven't seen for 20 years.” He called it an “unexpected failure.”
He also blamed “lifestyle changes” of clients “spending more time at home” since 2020 for the strain on the water supply and suggested the problem was linked to the climate crisis as the recent drought had depleted the reservoir feeding the treatment centre.
“Climate change is changing the environment – we should have a backup chemical,” he said.
Hinton also blamed the regulator's “infrastructure standards” for Tunbridge Wells having only one water centre, adding: “Customers relying on one asset are always at greater risk than those who are not, until infrastructure standards are updated, which they will be.”
Rink said the inspectorate has virtually no ability to impose additional penalties on the water company because it issued a boil water notice and informed residents of the risk before doing so.
He explained: “We have enforced the company's request to install a microfiltration unit to stop residual aluminum leaching into the clean water tank. The company has not installed one. We have no further sanctions to deal with this, the regulations do not provide us with adequate scope to do so. We do not believe that we have a potential pathway under current legislation that would allow us to sanction the company if it fails.”
South East Water is on the brink of financial collapse, a fate that threatens many other water companies. Last year I had to ask for £200 million in cash from its investors after regulator Ofwat placed it on its watchlist over your financial health.
South East Water has been contacted for comment.
