The Sustainable Business Initiative (SBI) of the Guernsey Chamber was delighted to be invited to tour the Guernsey Water waste water site at Belgrave Bay.
We were joined by 12 others to learn more about how Guernsey Water disposes of Guernsey’s waste water, what has changed over the past decades, and what the future holds.
We were welcomed by Stephen Langlois, CEO of Guernsey Water, who noted the idea for a tour came about from an SBI event at Chamber when the island’s water waste was discussed during the question and answer session.
A brief presentation comparison with many UK locations showcased Guernsey’s unique situation, particularly having no heavy industry or agricultural runoff while being next to one of the highest tidal ranges in the world. This makes for very different issues than that faced by a large city, or rural area with large industrial waste and only small rivers for outflows. It was also interesting to better understand that unlike some areas, we do not extract and return water to the system like many in the UK. We are blessed with sufficiently high water table and rain fall, which is then managed carefully by Guernsey Water.
It was not always so, as 2008 brought record flooding, forcing the States of Guernsey and Guernsey Water to upgrade aging infrastructure, build in planned redundancies and using scientific evidence to move most of our waste water to a long sea outfall in deeper water for diffusion of household waste.
The resulting 2012 waste water policy still drives decisions on how Guernsey Water delivers to the island. Guernsey Water argues that they are delivering the highest level of quality at the price the island is willing to pay, and noted that taking the next large step in adding another level of treatment would cost in excess of £100Mn, which wouldn’t be feasible with the current political debates.
Our tour was just a few days after the Guernsey Press reported record levels of rainwater causing concern and overflows for those on cesspools. As the climate crisis increasingly poses challenges to utilities such as Guernsey Water, they noted that increasing extreme weather events are taken into consideration when planning resilience for the future wastewater needs of the island.
SBI were grateful for the opportunity to learn more about this forgotten but crucial service to the island, and for the tour of the plant to appreciate the complexity of what they undertake daily. One plea to help them do their jobs better and indeed to reduce the cost to the island of their service is to protect our pipes and never flush anything manmade, particularly wet wipes.
