Interview: Marcus Rink, chief inspector, Drinking Water Inspectorate

Buried deep in the bowels of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) – the regulator tasked with ensuring the water from all customers’ taps is, as chief inspector Marcus Rink emphasises, “clean, safe, and wholesome”.

In his first interview in the role, Rink is speaking to Utility Week. The chief inspector, who replaced Jeni Colbourne last summer and stepped up to the top role after more than 13 years with the DWI, reflects that his first seven months in charge have been hectic. So much so that he says: “I’m not sure I’ve quite got my feet under the table”.

This is understandable when you consider that his first day in the post coincided with the cryptosporidium outbreak that resulted in more than 300,000 United Utilities customers being issued with a boil water notice in August 2015.

Alongside dealing with the fallout from that incident, Rink is also preparing for an imminent review of the Drinking Water Directive, the impact of competition, the potential fracking revolution, and the chemical complexities presented by water trading.

Despite this series of challenges, it is that memorable first day – Monday 3 August – that sticks in Rink’s mind. He recalls that the phone rang and “suddenly, six weeks had gone”.

During that month and a half when the crypto hit the fan, Rink and his DWI colleagues were hard at work.

“That does cause you to divert all your energy and effort into ensuring that as the event is going on there is a clear understanding of what is happening, what needs to be done, who needs to go where, and who needs to be dealt with – the companies, government and stakeholders.”

That work is still continuing because the DWI investigation into the outbreak is ongoing. This is something Rink will not be drawn on. “My team is carrying out an investigation and I wouldn’t like to pre-empt what they’re doing and what their findings are,” he says.

The chief inspector adds that the report will only be published when the inspectors are “satisfied that have all the information”.

The cryptosporidium outbreak affected the Franklaw water treatment works in Preston, and addressing water quality issues at source is an area in which Rink is taking a keen interest.

This attention to what goes into the water network is directly related to his responsibility for what comes out the other end – good quality water.

“You’ve got to have good quality [water] to start with,” he says, “and that ends up with a good quality for consumers, and at the end of the day that’s what our interest is. If you pollute the water in the beginning and use expensive technology to remove it, that’s a bit of an own goal.”

As this view suggests, and Rink goes on to confirm, he is an advocate of catchment management.

This management of raw water quality is important because Rink sees that increasing pressure on water supplies, especially in the south and south east of England, will create a greater need for water trading in the near future – something which itself is far from easy.

“It’s a heavy product, it has different chemical makeups and it has its challenges. We’ve seen some interesting challenges abroad that have had some water quality effects.”

Specifically, Rink mentions the water supply crisis in Flint, Michigan in the US. This began in April 2014 when the municipal supplier changed its water source from treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water, which comes from Lake Huron and the Detroit River, to the Flint River.

The different chemistry of the Flint river water, which had not been subject to corrosion control treatment, resulted in a series of drinking water problems that culminated in lead contamination, and as many as 12,000 children suffered health problems. An outbreak of legionnaires’ disease may also be linked to the change in water supply.

Rink does not suggest that anything of this scale is likely to occur in England, but he says the event highlights the problems that water trading could create, adding “it’s a really interesting challenge and something we have to closely look at”.

“Our expectation is that there would be no deterioration in water quality and there should be no effects as a result of water trading or transportation.” Rink expects water trading to be tackled in the forthcoming abstraction reform legislation, and to play an ever-increasing role in the water resource challenge, especially for the companies in the south and southeast of the UK.

The solution is, according to Rink, a simple one: communication.

While one company is aware of what happens in its region and will have submitted part of its mitigation planning to the DWI, the recipient of any traded water may not have access to that information or have thought about the issues, which could lead to problems. “Everything from abstraction through to the tap must be considered, must be risk assessed, and must be looked at,” he says.

The protection of water sources is something Rink has an obvious passion for, and something he will bring with him into the review of the EU Drinking Water Directive in the near future.

Rink says the review of the directive may consider the risk assessments companies have to carry out and the materials used to purify and treat drinking water. However, he adds that the key element is the protection of the water resource in the first instance.

“The water we use for abstraction must be maintained at that quality. At the end of the day the better the water at abstraction the less risk there is.”

Protecting fresh water sources from the impact of fracking is something he says must be ensured, and he believes that collaboration between oil and gas companies and the water companies is essential. The sharing of information about the chemicals and materials used in the fracking process is something that will let water companies prepare for and mitigate any contamination events.

Not that Rink expects there to be a need for these plans – which the water companies will have to draw up as part of their risk-assessment strategies.

“There are clear requirements for fracking and one of them is a permit which must be granted by the Environment Agency. The basis of that permit is that [the shale gas companies] cannot drill under fresh water aquifers – so we know there is a low risk if it is carried out properly.”

He adds that the oil and gas industry, in co-operation with the water sector, could work together to debunk myths about the safety of fracking and “put consumers’ minds at risk”.

However, one area where Rink does have reservations is the impact of competition.

His predecessor, Jeni Colbourne, told Utility Week at the end of 2014 that the introduction of non-household competition could affect the quality of water supplied. She said: “Are there any new hazards? Yes. Opening the market, in theory, significantly puts up the risk.”

Her concerns are echoed by her successor, who says both the introduction of non-domestic competition and domestic competition – which could start to be introduced by 2020 following the government’s announcement at the end of last year – could make the sector significantly more complex.

“I see the water industry like a jigsaw puzzle. At the moment it’s a 25-piece jigsaw puzzle. When you put [non-household] competition into the water industry, it is like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. That doesn’t mean the puzzle can’t be solved and you can’t see the picture, but it does add another level of complexity.”

The potential for domestic competition at the end of the decade takes the complexity – and the metaphor – further still, even if it is currently in the DWI’s “future challenges” pile.

“That’s moving from a 1,000-piece jigsaw to a 50 million-piece jigsaw. You’re increasing complexity even further, but there is no reason it shouldn’t happen and no reason it shouldn’t be successful.”

Whatever the state of competition, he says, the inspectorate’s remit will remain the same – “ensuring the customer receives all the time good quality, clean and wholesome water”.

If standards fall below this, Rink is well aware that the implications would be profound for the trust and confidence that customers have in the sector, something the DWI’s fellow regulator Ofwat is pushing hard to build and maintain.

“People are confident in water but when they lose confidence, it is very difficult to get it back. You can’t take it off the shelf if something is wrong, so we’ve got to get it right first time, every time.”

The DWI’s regulatory approach is different from that of its regulatory sibling in the Environment Agency, which has recently hit companies with a series of record fines for pollution events. Rink intends to take the DWI down a different path.

“We are promoting a self-regulatory model – the water industry is at the forefront of self-regulation.

“We ask them to do the risk assessment, they provide us with the information, and they mitigate those risks. Where that doesn’t happen we do use regulatory tools to ensure that they do.”

These tools include issuing notices on the companies, carrying out investigations, working with the water companies to resolve any issues, and then, as a last resort, fining and penalising the supplier or whoever is responsible for the water quality problem.

The aim for Rink, and the inspectorate, is to be “the invisible regulator”.

“If you have to jump up and down and shout, if people are contacting you, you’ve not got it right. If you’re working nicely in the background and industry is taking note, doing their duties – that’s where I want to be.”

In that sense, Rink believes his history with the DWI been positive. He joined in 2002 as an inspector, before working his way up to become principal inspector, deputy chief inspector and then taking on the chief inspector role in August last year.

“I do have the feeling that having a pair of hands that has been in the industry for a while is probably a plus rather than a minus. That’s important from a regulatory point of view to have a strong science background and a strong water background because the industry respects that.”

He adds with a smile: “I’ve pretty much been to every treatment works in the country and there hasn’t been a company in this country where I’ve not set foot or visited their offices.”

This gives him a great vantage point from which to work with the sector, keeping companies on task to ensure that, however the sector develops, they keep providing clean, safe, and wholesome water.