Posted on

South West Water’s plans for desalination plants in Cornwall

Due to unforeseen circumstances our coverage of South West Water’s proposed desalination plant continues at:

“South West Water Announce Desalination Plant in Cornwall“

Continuing my due diligence regarding the current “astonishingly low” water level in Colliford Reservoir I’ve been searching for hints on South West Water’s recently announced plans for two new desalination plants on the south coast of Cornwall. I’ve been poring over their draft Water Resources Management Plan (dWRMP for short) for 2024, which I downloaded quite some time ago. It’s a hefty document, but given the recent media frenzy about possible desalination plants in Cornwall I’ve been over it with the proverbial fine tooth comb. I eventually discovered the information I was searching for in the last place I looked.

Chapter 8 on “Supply-Side Option Development” seemed the best place to start. It had this to say:

The potential addition of repurposed mines and quarries and desalination as supply side options for our SWW WRZs are being developed in response to the current (2022) drought. At this time, no specific options can be included within our feasible list. Work is ongoing and we envisage options will be progressed to a stage where they can be included in our approach by the time of our Statement of Response. Refer to Annex C of this Chapter for more information on our considerations on the use of desalination as part of our revised dWRMP.

Turning to Annex C, I read:

Continue reading “South West Water’s plans for desalination plants in Cornwall”
Posted on

South West Water announces new Hawks Tor Reservoir

For the previous article in this series please see:

“The 2022 Drought in Cornwall“

As Cornwall’s reservoirs finally begin refilling after a long hot summer South West Water announced in a press release last week that:

As part of South West Water’s continued investment in water resilience across the region, the company is today applying for a permit to unlock supplies from a new source in Cornwall.

Hawks Tor was a redundant china clay pit on Bodmin Moor purchased by South West Water in March 2022, the brownfield site has been converted into a water source and should be supplying customers this month.

This will be the first reservoir brought online by any water company in the country during the ongoing drought, using the latest technology to secure supplies in the short term and provide greater longer term resilience.

Susan Davy, CEO of Pennon Group which owns South West Water, said: “We continue to deliver on our long-standing commitment to investing in our region’s water resources, building capacity where it is needed most and ensuring long-term water resilience across the region. Having only acquired the site a matter of months ago, Hawks Tor should be supplying customers in November. We Continue to take early and proactive actions to ensure the security of water supply for our region during the current drought and into the future.”

Continue reading “South West Water announces new Hawks Tor Reservoir”