Sunday 1 December 2019

No 184: When your grandchildren ask what you did, will your answer make them proud?



In the UK we have special legislation (the Fixed Term Parliament Act) which stipulates that there should only be an election once every 5 years. The fact that on Dec 12th 2019 we will have our third election in 4 years demonstrates just how staggeringly successful this piece of legislation has been. This coming election will be  the most important UK general election for a generation. Hanging on the outcome is not just the UK’s relationship with Europe, but whether the UK stays as a ‘united’ kingdom. Depending on how the votes land there is a very credible series of events that could unfold which would lead to the end of the England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland union.

For overseas readers unfamiliar with the UK political parties, there are two main parties: the Conservatives (often called the Tories) on the right, and Labour on the left. There are a handful of smaller parties, the biggest of which is the Liberal Democrats, who fill the centre ground and are unapologetically pro-Europe (I am a proud Liberal Democrat).

If the parties were processes on a sewage treatment works then the Tories would be the de-ragging and grit removal chambers at the head of the works: excellent in theory, and when they work they can be brilliant. However they just can’t be trusted to do what they claim. In my 28 years working in the wastewater sector I am yet to see a headworks working as it was designed.  An unnervingly large amount of clumpy shxt always manages to seep through.

Labour on the other hand are like a secondary treatment process (think Activated Sludge). Big, bold, mechanical, able to treat pretty much anything that might come down the pipe. However they have a tendency to be inflexible,  and are eye-wateringly expensive to operate. (I resisted the urge to refer to lots of hot air).

Finally there are the Lib Dems. They are the primary settlement tanks, nestling neatly between the Tory screens and the Labouresque nutrient removal. They quietly, robustly, reliably do their job removing the bulk of the solids from the wastewater. They arguably provide the most important stage in the whole treatment process, yet attract almost no attention whatsoever. Overlooked and under-appreciated. The LibDems currently have about 15% of the popular vote, yet just 3% of the seats in House of Commons (20 out of 650). The last Liberal Prime Minster was David Lloyd George.  In 1922.

The defining policy for the Lib Dems in 2019 is to ‘cancel Brexit’. It is a bold, high risk stance and will either alienate or resonate with voters. I am proudly European and am thankful for the freedoms that being part of the EU has brought me over the years. The European Union clearly isn’t perfect, but it has given us 50 years of strong trading relationships, travel freedoms and multi-country environmental controls. It was my grandparents generation who voted for our entry into Europe in the 1970s and I am extremely grateful to them for their foresight. I worry that my grandchildren will look back at the 2019 election and be disappointed.   

Being a fully paid up Lib Dem I did my duty last weekend and posted 300 leaflets in my neighbourhood. It was a gloriously cathartic exercise, with two notable events. The first was when I met a man vigorously cleaning his car. I didn’t recognise him at first, but it turned out he was someone I have spent the last 15 years sharing a swimming lane each Saturday morning. I didn’t recognise him with his clothes on. My second encounter was with a lady in her 30s who, upon taking the Lib Dem leaflet from my hand said, with a definite flirtatious smile, ‘Better than the Tories…but not as good as Labour’. We chatted for a few minutes and she wished me good luck. Both of the above exchanges were surprisingly cordial, despite our differing political views. I came away thinking (perhaps naively) that if all sides could adopt an open mind and a big smile (and could visualise at least half of their opponents naked) then we could probably find a workable solution.

As it happens I will not be in the UK on Dec 12th. I am trusting that my wife, who does not share the same political allegiances as myself, will deploy my proxy vote carefully. I will be in Madrid, co-chairing the EU Water Innovation Conference (https://www.eip-water.eu/eu-water-innovation-conference-2019-0). As of last Friday there are 850 people registered to attend (tickets are free…). Rather splendidly for a LibDemer like myself, the conference will celebrate all that is great about EU: the collaboration, the policy making, the leveraging of learning, and the innovation breakthroughs.

Unfortunately the conference ends too late for me to make it back to the UK that evening. I will therefore be watching the election results alone in my hotel room. I am realistic about the results.  I doubt the Lib Dems will sweep gloriously into power, but I hope we will make some gains and perhaps be a tempering voice on whoever does. We have more in common that binds us than we do which divides us. However, as noted by the exchanges with my neighbours, even our differences can be rather fun to unpick.

Sunday 20 October 2019

No 183: ‘Like a squirrel on speed…’


About 4 months ago I was interviewed for a podcast. It has just been published and the link is copied below. My performance has been described (by someone who I thought loved me) as being like that of a squirrel on speed.

I was attending a conference in Denver and the interviewer, Robert Osbourne (from the Outfall Podcast), and I were meeting at the end of a long day. We searched the conference venue for a quiet place to sit, eventually finding a sofa in one of the dark corners of the exhibition centre. It was a large expansive sofa, and had a man gently resting his eyelids at one end. We sat at the other end and started our chat, which at the time I thought had progressed relatively staidly. When we left the man who had been feigning sleep opened his eyes and had a look of such overwhelming relief that we were leaving I wondered if we had disturbed him. Listening to the interview 4 months on I have some insight into how he must have felt.

Listening to the interview is like playing a game of Spot The Error. There are an embarrassingly large number of misquotes and basic errors in my schpeel. I put it down to a mix of jetlag and unadulterated enthusiasm. I feel a sense of deep shame that I claimed it was Joseph Faraday who predicted The Great Stink in 1856. Obviously everyone who is anyone clearly knows it was Michael Faraday (I got mixed up between Michael Faraday and Joseph Bazalgette, JB being the mastermind behind the London sewer solution to the Great Stink).

I also cringe at my quote that mussels can ‘hold their breath for 3 weeks’. They cant. Obviously they cant. Only a complete fool would think they can. They can however not feed for this length of time. That’s what I meant to say.  

The error I am most ashamed of is where I boldly state an outright factual lie: that we will run out of phosphorus in 30 years. This is simply not true. What I meant to say was that some people predict we will be at  ‘peak phosphorus’ in 30 years (ie the point from which we are on a clear downward run thereafter). My hope is that despite this exuberant statement I have not detracted from the message that Phosphorus is a problem we need to think much harder about.

You can judge for yourselves. The link is here:  https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-outfall?refid=stpr

Monday 10 June 2019

No 182: The Message Has Changed! (or, alternatively, ‘Housekeeping Tips from World Leaders’)



For years the core message preached at climate change conferences around the world has been ‘Time is running out…’. That message has now changed. At the EcoSperity conference in Singapore last week, in front of an audience of over 1000 world leaders, business heads and academics a new message was proposed. Subtly different in structure but starkly different in message: ‘Time has run out’. This conference provided the clearest presentation of the climate crisis I have seen. Yet the doomsday message was balanced by credible suggestions of ways forward. What was different was the urgency of the call to action. Three decades of talk has had no tangible effect on the rate of temperature rise. The time for talk has run out.

The link to the 3 minute tone-setting opening video for the conference is here: https://www.ecosperity.sg/en/2019-conference.html. The full conference is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo4aoLFlY_k. I encourage you to jump to 45 minutes to hear Dr Will Stefan from the Australian National University give his prognosis (is it a shame that his slides on ‘planetary boundaries’ are not visible on the video). Additionally go to 1hr 8min and watch Christiana Figueres, Former Exec Secretary for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She was awesomely brilliant, captivating the whole room. Her demonstration of the scale of the challenge before us, using just a single sheet of A4, is gloriously simple yet also terrifying (1hr 13min). I was less persuaded by her explanation (for non-scientists) of what exponential means, but she won me back when she unconsciously started channelling Monty Python with her discussion about coal (‘coal is dead, it is demised, it is no more…’)

Alternatively you could jump to 3hr 30 min and watch the section where water, which had not been discussed as yet in the conference, made it onto the agenda. This was a session I was honoured to have been asked to chair. When designing the session I wanted to do something different to the traditional conference discussion panel. Borrowing heavily (ok…, stealing outright) from the format of Radio 4s ‘Museum of Curiosities’ I gave my three expert panellists the task of imagining they were 50 years in the future and were proposing an artefact for the new Museum of Water. You can discover why a 300yr old abacas, a 200yr old piece of wood and a suspicious looking 0.5kg of white powder were chosen by Francois Fevrier (CEO Suez Asia), Dr Helge Daebel (Investment Director, Emerald Ventures) and George Hawkins (former CEO for DC Water and now founder of Moonshot Mission Partners) respectively. They had an artist at the back of the room doing cartoon summaries of each of the sessions and attached is our summary picture. What I like most about this is the fact that I have been given a surprisingly butch face (as opposed to my usual chinless wonder look) AND a full head of hair!



The EcoSperity (Ecology and Prosperity coming together) event flowed neatly into the annual PUB Singapore International Water Week conference. Last year 24,000 people attended SIWW. On alternate years (such as this year) PUB host a smaller, more intimate, specialist conference with 200 or so invite-only guests. The focus this year was Industrial Water and I had been asked to be the Convener/Chairperson. My role was to set the tone, summarise the speeches, provide informative/amusing/probing questions (delete depending on the speakers attitude) during the panel sessions and to generally make sure the whole thing kept to time. It is harder than it sounds. During the opening session I had to speak in Malay while introducing an Eid-inspired video on Kinship (‘Air dicincang tidak akan putus’).  The secret is to pronounce the ‘Air’ part as Ah-eh, and after that you just run with it and hope for the best. This proverb translates into ‘Water does not break when you chop it’ and was accompanied by a lovely video on Muslim brotherhood. It was astonishingly relevant bearing in mind the Ecosperity message, and the global challenges we all face which will only be resolved if we work together.

I spent the whole of last week in South East Asia and on the Monday I had met with a local client. I was due to give a presentation to an audience of 40 or so people, and I had been told that one of them might be the Chairperson, a lady who was so well connected that she would almost certainly top the list of Most Powerful Women in Asia. Two minutes before I commenced my talk the audience filed into the room. I saw a middle aged lady dressed in a power-suit and assumed it was she. As I gave my presentation I focused my attention, charm and guile on this poor lady. It was only when we finished that I was directed to the real Chairwoman, a rather unassuming-looking lady who had sat quietly at a table at the back of the room. As we chatted she reminded me of my grandmother: clear-thinking, forthright, gracious.
She invited me to join her and her team for a buffet lunch, and as we sat chatting our conversation drifted away from water. Through a series of connections I still cannot quire recall we started discussing housework. I learned that in Asia housework is very much the domain of the female. I commented that actually I quite like ironing. In the Clark household ironing is a man-task. It is also an important part of my schedule when I am travelling. Fans of Die Hard 1 will recall that the hero John McLean overcomes jetlag by walking barefoot on a hotel carpet (before running around the building in a grubby T-shirt shooting lots of baddies). I have a similar routine: when I arrive at a hotel I like to take out all my shirts and crisply iron them (before sitting down in my underpants to clear my email backlog). It is an almost identical routine.
On sharing my love of ironing my new bestie, the Most Powerful Woman in Asia, was clearly not convinced of my sincerity. ‘Tell me’, she said in an enquiring and slightly accusatory voice, ‘how do you iron your shirts?’. Without hesitation I responded back confidently with the order my grandmother had shared with me some 40 years ago: collar, shoulders, sleeves, back, front. ‘Well done!’ she exclaimed ‘That is correct!’. Her confidence in me was restored. We then discussed vacuum cleaners (honestly we did!).
I truly hope to meet her again soon. I have a tip for dealing with stains on furniture I want to share with her which I think she might like.
Take furniture outside. Burn it. Buy new furniture.

Saturday 6 April 2019

No 181: All Hail Dr Zessner!



This coming Wednesday at the Global Water Summit in London I will chair a 90 minute session on ‘How to halve the cost of wastewater treatment’. When Christopher Gasson, CEO for GWI (and organiser of the summit), proposed this title my initial reaction was Pah! Merely halving the cost is not nearly ambitious enough. Modern sewage is ripe with all sorts of goodies (nutrients, cellulose, precious metals, copious amounts of energy…). We should be shooting for how to make wastewater treatment facilities profit centres, I argued. Christopher responded by saying he wanted the session to include the sewage network, not just the treatment facilities. That raised the bar somewhat. Now we had a challenge…

Even if I say so myself, Wednesday is going to be awesome. It will be a multi-media, highly interactive session (think fireworks, sparkly lights, carefully choreographed dancers and you won’t be far wrong). We are even giving away some free samples which, bearing in mind the wastewater theme, will provide something uniquely different to add to the usual conference delegate swag. There will be 25 ‘lighting showcases’, a dozen on-the-floor interviews, a 2 person expert panel who, like Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn tussling with Brexit, will argue and jostle despite them both essentially being on the same side. If they don’t, then I will channel Jean-Claude Juncker and generally stir things up from the safety of my Chairman’s podium.

Of course, to halve the cost of treatment requires having some knowledge of the actual costs to start with; you can’t halve something if you don’t know where you are starting from. My good friend Frank Rogalla (Head of Innovation for the Spanish utility Aqualia) sent me some interesting data: the costs for water and wastewater in the UK average around 3,5 €/m3 and this compares to just 1,8 €/m3 in Spain and 9 €/m3 in Denmark. [As an aside, it is worth noting that Frank would have been a much better choice of Chairman for this session. Through his inspiring work on the Horizon 2020 projects http://www.all-gas.eu and http://www.run4life-project.eu he has a far greater knowledge. However, Christopher met me first so boo-yah Frank]. The above bill costs are interesting, but are miss-leading (sorry Frank). Firstly they are for both water supply and wastewater treatment. Secondly this is the prices customers are charged, not the costs incurred. The figures are ‘confused’ by local government regulations and subsidies. I needed to do some more detailed research.

This is where Dr Zessner (and his colleagues Lampert, Kroiss and Lindtner) came to the rescue. I found a truly fascinating paper (no really) which they published back in 2010. Their work centred on the countries around the Danube/Black Sea area, with a particular focus on Austria. They concluded that in Austria the cost of treatment (including N and P removal) was around 30€ per person per year. This is a captivating figure, not least because a quick (but unscientific) poll completed with my non-water sector mates revealed an expectation that this cost would be 10 – 100x higher (ie 300 - 3000€/head/year). If nothing else, this confirms that Joe Public (or perhaps it is just my mates) simply hasn’t got a clue how much their water bill is. It also makes a mockery of the financial regulators who obsess about continually squeezing down water bills, despite survey after survey showing that most people would prefer to pay a bit more to their water utility in return for better environmental stewardship, but that’s a blog topic for another day.

Dr Zessner, and his marvellous team, didn’t stop there. They then looked at what happens if you include the cost of the sewer network. My Joe Public test group confidently predicted the increase would be between 5% and 50%. However according to Dr Zessner and his team, the actual cost (in Austria, in 2010) was 90€ per person per year, ie increasing the wastewater treatment cost by 200%. We are going to have such fun on Wednesday unwrapping this further.

All Hail Dr Zessner, you are my hero (at least for this month). I feel slightly saddened that your paper, published in Water Science and Technology (vol 62(2):223-30) had only been downloaded 36 times. As a measure of my shallowness I am pretty certain that if I had a paper published in WST I would have persuaded my family, and everyone in both my inner and outer circle of friends (ie all 3 of them) to log on at least twice and leave a slew of positive comments. Clearly you do not have my combination of insecurity and ego. Dr Zessner, perhaps, just perhaps, you will get a surge of interest now: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45282491_Cost_comparison_of_wastewater_in_Danubian_countries


Sunday 27 January 2019

No 180: Burn Baby Burn!



For the past 49 years I have effortlessly avoided Burns Night. I was aware of its existence but, being based in London, there is not a much call to partake in a Scottish-centric celebration focussed on (arguably) the most famous Scotsman ever, Poet Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns. Burns Night just wasn’t part of my whirlwind social calendar (a hectic nightly schedule of eating chocolate in front of Netflix). This year things changed. This year my wife Stella and I were invited to the annual Northumbrian Water Burns Night celebration. The invite stipulated Highland Dress.

This presented my first challenge. I have a standard dinner jacket which I wear to various back-slapping events throughout the year. Like most DJs, it is too big and makes me look like an oversized penguin. That said, it is at least a straightforward piece of attire and it takes less than 2 minutes to put on. The most complicated it gets is with the addition of a cumberbund, which I have always regarded as a silly piece of clothing designed simply to make fat men thinner and one I have therefore resolutely refused to wear. Highland dress however is a completely different matter. There is obviously the kilt (which I initially wore backwards until the nice Hire Shop man pointed out, in a tone of voice that suggested he thought I wore skirts more frequently than I actually do, that the pleats should be at the back). Then there is the sporran (why they don’t just put pockets in the kilt is beyond me), garters, a little dagger that you tuck in your knee-high socks, a waistcoat, a top-jacket, a bow tie, a special kilt-pin AND a pair of unique kilt shoes which have the most complex laces you can possibly imagine. The Hire Shop man was just as flummoxed as I when it came to how to do up the laces (not quite so clever now Mr I-Know-How-To-Wear-a-Pleated-Skirt, eh?!). Thankfully Mr Google provided the answer. One of the marvels of the modern day is that there are internet chat rooms for literally every kind of need. You can admire my handiwork in the attached photo.

Before I am accused of cultural miss-appropriation I would like to point out that I am 1/16th Scottish. Clark is a proud Scottish name (‘Clarke’ is English). My nasty nasal East-London accent aside, I felt I had enough highland blood coursing through my veins last night to wear my Highland Dress with pride. (That said, only a true 100% Scot would find the chaffing that comes from wearing a rough tartan kilt and a sporran something that they don’t regret the day later).  

The event was held at a multi-award winning venue on the edge of Kielder Reservoir. This is an awe inspiring location, just a few miles south of the Scottish border. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful parts of the UK (it also happens to be the darkest sky location in Europe). As it happens it has been a location I have wanted to visit for 8 years. Back in 2011 I had a job interview with Heidi Mottram, CEO for Northumbrian Water. Back then she was relatively new in post and was pulling together her new team. In the interview I asked her (slightly cynically I suspect) to tell me about one of the publicly stated company values: ‘Ethical’. I was keen to hear how she would turn this lovely aspirational goal into something that a modern corporation could credibly claim as their own.

Without hesitation she talked confidently and passionately about the Northumbrian Water holiday cottages, situated around Kielder Reservoir. These cottages were, she claimed, the epitome of Ethical behaviour. Through maintaining these cottages NWL was ensuring that this incredibly rural and remote part of the country had local employment and a thriving healthy community. Her answer was inspiring (Heidi always is). I didn’t get the job but since then I have wanted to see this facility for myself. Last night I did. Stella and I stayed in one of the spectacular cottages (think Centre Parcs…just 1000 times better), it had the perfect balance of ecological sensitivity and heart-warming comfort. No wonder it is something of which NWL staff are rightly proud.

My first Burns Night involved numerous toasts, lots of songs, some lovely speeches and lots and lots of dancing. I even got to spend time with one off my childhood heroes, Olympic runner Steve Cram who now organises the annual Kielder Marathon around the reservoir. Of all the ‘facts’ I learnt about Rabbie (including that he sired 12 children and died at 37, I assume of exhaustion) my favourite is that Bob Dylan cites him as a major influence. As the night became day and the party transformed from a structured celebration into a frantic, glorious disco (aficionados of early noughties dance please note blog title!) this fact felt particularly resonant.

My most popular blog (measured by the number of hits) was no 169 back in September 2017. It was entitled ‘The Bravest Water Utility in the World’, and I shared a story about Wannon Water in Victoria, Australia. I think  Northumbrian Water deserves a similar title. The Most Ethical Water Company? Probably. The Most Environmentally Conscious? I suspect so. The Most Fun to Spend a Night in a Kilt With! Undoubtedly.