APEM Group has been announced as the winner of the ‘Pollution Mitigation Initiative of the Year’ category at the Water Industry Awards, in recognition of the company’s continuous water quality monitoring project for United Utilities.

Working in partnership with Meteor Communications, APEM Group managed a water quality monitoring project on the River Kent near Kendal in the Lake District. The project was implemented to help ensure the protection of water quality while treated water was discharged into the river through a temporary outfall pipe at a new location, following the damage of the original outfall by storm Desmond in 2015.

Hannah Austin, Divisional Director – Water Science, APEM Group, said: “I am immensely proud of the team that brought this amazing project to life. It’s great to see the tangible benefits to our rivers that monitoring data and evidence-led decision making bring. For APEM Group and our partners at Meteor Communications to be nationally recognised for this innovative work is a remarkable achievement.”

The WIA judges felt that APEM Group’s entry “stood out as both very relevant and innovative, while also presenting a positive message about pollution mitigation.” They described it as “a scalable solution to enhance pollution control and meet future demands, presenting significant benefits.”

A key element of the project was the deployment of Meteor ESNET water quality monitoring stations, installed and maintained by Meteor Communications to provide real-time water quality data both upstream and downstream of the temporary outfall. Meteor’s Managing Director Matt Dibbs, who attended the awards ceremony, said: “We were delighted that the scalability of our water monitoring quality monitoring solutions has been recognised as these systems meet the river monitoring requirements of the Environment Act’s Section 82. This project therefore represents a blueprint for the large number of monitoring systems that water companies will establish in the upcoming AMP period.”