Profession : Environmental Consultant
Nationality: British

Summary
I started work in the water industry in 1972, with Huddersfield County Borough Council, transferring to Yorkshire Water in 1974. I joined Welsh Water in 1977, leaving in March 2000 to set up Norman Lowe Enviro Consulting.

Until March 2000 I was responsible for the environmental policy of Welsh Water and Hyder Utilities, and especially involved in the planning and execution of the environmental improvement programme. This involved the expenditure in 1995-2000 of some £650million on new and enlarged sewerage systems and sewage treatment works. During this time I was a member of the Water UK Waste Water Group, advising at UK level on all issues relating to sewage treatment and disposal, and was Chairman of the Recycling and Waste group which specialises in the disposal of sewage sludge. In this capacity I led the negotiations with the British Retail Consortium which led to the Safe Sludge Matrix governing the application of sludge to farmland, for which I was awarded the Ken Roberts Award for Innovation for 2000 by CIWEM (see below).

Norman Lowe (second right) receiving the 2000 Ken Roberts Award for Technical Innovation in the Water Industry from Elliott Morley, Parliamentary Secretary, MAFF at the CIWEM Annual Dinner at the Café Royal on 28 March 2000.


I am a member of the Council of the Sustainable Organic Resources Partnership , the aim of which is to become a unique and authoritative source of information and best practice in the advocacy and use of organic resources on land for the public benefit.

In June 2001 I was awarded the OBE for services to the water industry and to environmental protection.

Norman at Buckingham Palace in November 2001, having received his OBE from Her Majesty the Queen.

Education and professional status

Experience

From 1992 to 2000 I was Chief Scientist, Environment, responsible for the company's environmental policy, negotiating consent conditions with the Environment Agency, and for the regulatory aspects of planning the future expenditure programme for 2000-2005. In preparation for the AMP2 expenditure programme for 1995-2000 I led the negotiations which led to the innovative Protocol with the Welsh Region of the Environment Agency that provided the framework for an "open-book" approach to managing the programme. This greatly reduced the risk of overspend by the company as well as maximising the environmental benefit within the overall budget.

From 1993 I played a major part in the devising and implementation of Welsh Water's waste water disinfection policy. I was Welsh Water's Project Manager for Green Sea, the innovative Welsh partnership that played a major part in the dramatic improvement in bathing water quality in Wales. In 1995, the year before Green Sea's launch, only 21% of identified Welsh bathing waters reached the Bathing Water Directive guideline standard and there were only 2 Blue Flags awarded to Welsh beaches. By the end of 1999 56% of beaches reached the guideline standard, the best-ever for any Environment Agency region, and over 50 Blue Flags (including Marinas and the new Green Coast Award) had been applied for.

Until March 2000 I was Chairman of the Water UK Recycling and Waste Network, previously the Sludge Group, culminating in the Safe Sludge Matrix and the 2000 Ken Roberts Award for Innovation. I have also been Chairman of the Trade Effluent Practitioner's Group and the Bag it and Bin it Group. I represented Water UK in the discussions with DETR on the proposed new Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations and gave verbal evidence on sewage sludge treatment and disposal practices to the House of Commons Select Committee on Sewage Treatment and Disposal.

For 15 years I gave advice through Water UK and its predecessors on various EU Directives, particularly the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, the proposed Ecology Directive (now developed into the Water Framework Directive), and the proposed new Bathing Water Quality and Sludge Directives.

In 1996 I spent 3 weeks in Shanghai, China, advising on a major infrastructure project during which time I developed a strategy for controlling trade discharges to sewer in Shanghai, to enable effective treatment of the city's waste water. This strategy is now in use.

I have visited waste-water treatment facilities in the USA and Japan and in France, Germany and Belgium where I was part of a group advising on the development of reed bed treatment technology in Europe. I have visited Hungary where I provided advice on a project investigating waste water operation and management . I have also given presentations abroad, notably in the USA on waste water disinfection, in China on trade effluent control and in mainland Europe on reed bed treatment.

Consultancy

As a consultant, I am chairman of a number of organisations and groups, and I have chaired and given presentations to water industry conferences on a variety of subjects. I am a member of the Council of the Sustainable Organic Resources Partnership, the aim of which is to become a unique and authoritative source of information and best practice in the advocacy and use of organic resources on land for the public benefit.

I have continued to provide advice to Government departments on the use of sludge in agriculture, and on the achievement of bathing water quality standards. I also provide expert advice to Welsh Water on waste water and environment issues, sitting as an independent advisor on their Environment and Quality Committee.

Through CREH I have also advised the States of Jersey on the achievement of effluent quality standards and on trade effluent control issues. I have also provided advice to a number of clients in Great Britain on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, including a detailed analysis of the methodologies used by the Environment Agency to derive the pressure and impact risk maps that will be an important contributor to the eventual Programme of Measures.

Since 2001 I have provided training on a range of subjects concerning the water industry including waste water treatment and effluent control. I have also organised conferences for CIWEM and others. In particular since 2004 I have organised through Coastal Management for Sustainability a regular series of CIWEM conferences on Urban Drainage and on the economic regulation of the water industry.

In addition to water industry consultancy I have given training courses on behalf of Butterfly Conservation covering identification and survey techniques for butterflies and macro-moths and on the leaf-mining macro-moths.