Early Birds Get MCERTS Certificates at WWEM - Graham Meller

Siemens and Aquamatic were the first instrument manufacturers to receive MCERTS certificates at the inaugural WWEM event that took place on 29th and 30th June at the Bretby Conference Centre near Burton on Trent, England. WWEM (Water/Wastewater and Environmental Monitoring) is a new event designed to provide the latest news and information on the monitoring of water quality and quantity. It was jointly organised by the Environment Agency, SWIG and Environmental Technology publications.

Much of the focus at WWEM was on the Environment Agency’s monitoring certification scheme, MCERTS, which aims to improve the quality of monitoring data delivered by operators of regulated processes.

Under the Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) regulations operators of processes are obliged to use ‘MCERTified’ equipment if they are appropriate and available.

Manufacturers of monitoring instruments are now able to seek MCERTS certification for their equipment, and the first two companies to achieve this were presented with their certificates by the Agency’s Head of Monitoring and Assessment Catherine Wright. In her speech, Catherine noted the importance of the MCERTS scheme for water providing regulators, stakeholders and the public with confidence in the results produced by the industry. She said "MCERTS is here to stay. However, if it weren’t for the people in this room there would be no scheme, so it is with great pleasure that I can thank you for the contribution you are making to the scheme".

David Hewitt who received the Certificates on behalf of Siemens, expressed his thanks to SIRA and the Environment Agency for their help and guidance throughout the process, adding "As soon as we learned about MCERTS we recognised that it represented an opportunity for us to provide our customers with third party accreditation of our specifications, and to take a lead in the water flow monitoring sector. We are delighted to be the first company to receive MCERTS accreditation for two of our ultrasonic open channel flowmeters, the HydroRanger 200 and the OCM 111 as it shows the confidence in the reliability of our instruments."