South West Water has been fined £7.87M after a judge ruled that multiple environmental offences across Devon and Cornwall stemmed from “reckless failures” in its management systems and responses to known pollution risks. The case centres on repeated discharges from wastewater assets, with the court pointing to inadequate operational controls and risk management rather than isolated incidents. For civil and environmental engineers, the ruling signals closer scrutiny of sewerage network operation, monitoring regimes and contingency planning for combined sewer overflows and treatment works.

BQE Water has restarted the selenium removal plant at Centerra Gold’s Kemess project in British Columbia, using its patented Selen-IX™ ion exchange process to treat mine-impacted water. The Kemess installation was the first full-scale Selen-IX™ plant, designed to remove dissolved selenium to low µg/L levels without generating large volumes of sludge typical of lime co-precipitation systems. The restart confirms long-term operability of the modular Selen-IX™ circuit, relevant for sites facing tightening selenium discharge limits in mountainous, high-runoff catchments.

Egis has appointed Jamie Gleave as senior environmental impact assessment technical director for the UK, bringing more than 25 years’ experience across energy, transport and water infrastructure, including Wylfa Newydd nuclear power station and National Grid electricity transmission schemes. Gleave previously served as EIA technical director at AECOM, where he led its global EIA technical excellence practice and directed environmental work on the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet and M42 Junction 6 DCO schemes, acting as expert witness. He will work with UK–Ireland head of environment Afshan Rasheed to build Egis’s EIA, DCO and technical assurance capability.