The Rising Stars scheme takes eight young professionals from the sector on a year-long skills development programme. Mathew Beech went along with them to an Anglian Water treatment works.

It’s not often you get to witness the chief executive of a major water company standing with a knife in a three-foot hole in the middle of a farmer’s field in Lincolnshire.

Anglian Water chief executive, and national president of the Institute of Water (IoW), Peter Simpson is standing in the middle of a ring of high vis jackets, examining the soil and sizing up the link between compaction and surface run-off.

Those adorned in the high visibility yellow and orange are eight of the water industry’s brightest prospects – and Utility Week. They are here as part of the IoW’s Rising Stars programme, which celebrates and rewards young professionals in the water sector who have demonstrated potential and shown an appetite to progress in the industry.

This latest event sees the Stars in Lincoln where they meet Simpson and the Anglian Water team at the state-of-the-art Hall water treatment works. The topic of the day is the treatment of pesticides, and whether they should be tackled at source or treated and removed from the water.

On a stunning but crisp winter’s day, Simpson, the Stars, and the Anglian Water team behind the £44 million water treatment plant assemble at the site reception.

The Stars chat among themselves – a crucial part of the network-building the IoW champions – before Simpson welcomes everyone. We then all embark on our tour of the Hall treatment plant.

The Stars, who hail from a range of backgrounds in the water sector, show a natural inquisitiveness, questioning operational development scientist Chris Faisey not only on how the different elements of the plant work, but also on how the facility as whole  is run.

Northern Ireland Water’s Matthew Lundy shows an interest in the membrane filtering system, while South East Water’s Will Finlay and Yorkshire Water’s Krishna Morker look particularly closely at the UV disinfection section.

After a quick pitstop for lunch, the group boards a minibus and heads to a nearby farm to see the other side of the treatment versus prevention debate. Here, Anglian’s catchment adviser, Kelly Hewson-Fisher, runs through some of the tips the company is offering farmers in the region to prevent the ingress of metaldehyde – used in slug pellets – into water sources.

These include things as simple as drip trays in pesticide-handling areas, through to understanding the ground. This is where we end up with Simpson, following the Stars into the soil pit. Compacted soil, as a result of farm machinery, is less permeable and increases surface runoff in wet weather – and the levels of pesticide that may end up in the water. Prodding it with a knife helps to reveal the state of the soil.

WRc scientist Jo Lamont expresses the view of all the Stars when she talks of how beneficial it has been to share ideas and talk with peers from other businesses, building up contacts that will serve them all well into the future.

And that is the rationale behind  the Rising Stars programme. It nurtures their ambitions by showing them more of the industry than they may otherwise see, helps them to develop a network of people who can encourage one another, and motivates them to continue on their professional development journeys in the water industry.

The Rising Stars of the water sector

Krishna Morker, water quality team leader, Yorkshire Water

Krishna graduated from Lancaster University with a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences and a PhD in plant molecular biology. She joined Yorkshire Water and after a six-month secondment with the DWI, she returned to Yorkshire and gained chartered scientist status.

James ­Sommerville, alliance delivery manager, WGM Engineering

James completed an MEng in product design engineering at the University of Strathclyde before joining WGM Engineering as a graduate engineer. As the alliance delivery manager for a new E&M Alliance for Scottish Water, he is responsible for leading both an office support team and field service team in delivering planned maintenance across Scotland.

Matthew Lundy, project manager (engineering & procurement), NI Water

Matthew’s career started out with environmental consultancy RPS as a graduate engineer and assistant CDM co-ordinator and he has worked with contractors in Northern Ireland and Australia. He joined NI Water three years ago and in that time has delivered over £4 million-worth of capital expenditure.

Jo Lamont, scientist (physics), WRc plc

After completing her MSci in Physics from the University of Nottingham and research at Fudan University in Shanghai, Jo joined WRc as a graduate in 2014. During her time at WRc she has worked on a wide variety of projects covering asset management, technology and treatment processes for water companies, technology suppliers and the gas distribution network.

Anna Riddick, AMP project scientist, Welsh Water

Anna completed a BSc (Hons) in environmental science at Leeds University before joining Welsh Water’s graduate scheme. She is now AMP project scientist with responsibility for delivering national environment programme schemes, including the second water industry-wide Chemical Investigations Programme and various Biodiversity schemes.

Kara Sadler, strategy scientist, Anglian Water

Kara joined Anglian Water in 2010 after completing a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and has spent six months on secondment to the Drinking Water Inspectorate. She also has an MSc in Water and Wastewater Engineering and was one of the Institute of Water’s first Chartered Scientists.

Will Finlay, laboratory project manager, South East Water

Will joined South East Water as a water sampler and has worked his way up to project manager of a multi-million pound laboratory relocation.

Despite working full time he completed a Business and Technology Education Council  qualification in applied science, passing with a distinction, and gained a 2:1 for a biology degree.

Stephen Woodhams, network co-ordinator, South Staffs Water

Stephen joined South Staffs Water in 2009 as a network support assistant in the hydraulic modelling team. Following the completion of a two-year development plan, he was promoted to network co-ordinator in the asset management team in 2012. In 2013 Stephen embarked upon a five-year journey to achieve a BEng in Civil Engineering, after successfully securing funding from the Utilities and Service Industries Training Limited’s Business Skills Award.