The above picture taken this month is starkly telling us hydrocarbons are still an enormous threat to our environment.
The British Water Code of Practice for Manufactured Treatment Devices Designed to Treat Surface Water Runoff is helping to regulate the situation. However, it is important we should be including the need for type testing to the European Standard BS EN 858 for treatment devices to ensure we are capturing hydrocarbons with certainty.
It is with this challenge SPEL Products have carried out a considerable amount of research and certification under Water Research Council WRc for the new range of SPEL Stormceptor Class I by-pass separators ESR (Enhanced Silt Removal) Range. The only separators certified to the British Water Code of Practice and the European Standard BS EN 858 on the market today.
SuDS component mitigation index
The SPEL Stormceptor Class 1 by-pass separator ESR range achieves the mitigation for TSS is 0.8, the mitigation for metals 0.6 and for hydrocarbons 0.9.
It is good to see the publication of the Environmental Audit Committee, Water Quality in Rivers Report, following their comprehensive inquiry. Very needed is the important recommendation that permits should be required for all outfalls on roads with an annual average daily traffic above 15,000 vehicles and the establishing of strict conditions for their management, so as to minimise pollution from run-off. Quite demanding as such management has been recoiled from and pointed up as a reason not including separators because they have to be serviced. The fact is, whatever solution is proposed, maintenance has to be undertaken to maintain its effectiveness.
There is a vital role for consulting engineers and planning authorities to understand the need of designing in the best and most efficient products and systems if we are going to deliver good sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and capture pollutants that will otherwise be discharged into our waterways. Our streams and rivers are the unfortunate conveyors of the pollution that ends up in our oceans, so we need to deal with this at the source.
SPEL Stormceptor Class 1 by-pass separator ESR Range with WRc certification and as tested to the European Standard BS EN 858. This dual accreditation is unique and offers a ‘belt and braces’ answer to SuDS.
