The River Dee is a critical supply of drinking water for over 2.5m people in the North West of England and North Wales and pollution is an ever-present risk. An intensive monitoring regime mitigates the risk as long as it is kept up-to-date.

The Water Companies (DCWW, Dee Valley Water and United Utilities), who co-fund an intense monitoring programme of river water quality, working closely with the Environment Agency have been successful in managing the risk for the last 27 years.

ALS Environmental has carried out the analysis to the high standards required by the Water Companies for many years. We maintain a laboratory and intake protection stations which are situated along the river Dee.

Historically the laboratory has been in Runcorn, but on the 28th January 2014 Ian Warburton and his team successfully relocated to a new purpose built facility in Chester.

Stefan James, chairman of the River Dee Steering Committee explains:

"Locating the laboratory closer to the intakes was important in that it allows for quicker reporting of the condition of the rivers’ quality. This informs the water companies so that they may control  intakes and manage the water treatment process in direct relation to any risks posed by river water quality, in so doing protecting the end user (customer).

The analysis required is unique in that the staff analyse samples from 8 locations twice a day, 365 days of the year. They have 5 hours to turn the analysis round in and must also react to any limit breaches, telemetry alarms from the river monitoring or pollution incidents.

The service to the customer had to be continuous throughout the relocation. Ian and his team managed the operation to enable the morning samples to be reported from Runcorn and the afternoon samples reported from Chester.

Re-locating the laboratory also enables a more rapid analytical response in the case of any detected pollution incidents. In addition to the drinking water protection afforded, this also ensures that any environmental effects can be quantified and managed in a way that minimises impact.

Stefan James went on to comment

"During the lab relocation, it was essential that there was no loss or deterioration of service. ALS were able to build, develop and validate the new laboratory at Bell Meadows whilst running in parallel with the operation at Runcorn. Methods were gradually transferred from one site to the other without impact on the client, whilst accreditation and reporting limits were maintained. From a customer perspective the relocation was seamless.”

If you have any questions regarding the River Dee laboratory transfer or our Chester laboratory please contact our customer service team or call us on 02476 42 12 13.