BYTNAR - TALKS
EPISODE 010 - NUTRIENT NEUTRALITY
This episode is for people who want to know more about Nutrient Neutrality.
If you ask yourself questions:
What is Nutrient Neutrality?
Why should we care about Nutrient Neutrality?
What does being in the Nutrient Neutrality zone mean to my project?
How to assess projects for Nutrient Neutrality?
This episode should give you a broad idea of who, how, where and what of the Nutrient Neutrality.
This is Bytnar Talks the Engineer Takes on Construction Episode 10 hi I'm Piotr Bytnar each day I help my clients plan and design building projects through Bytnar Limited a Consulting Chartered Structural Engineers. practice my biggest passion and the cornner tone on which I've built my business is find finding clever solutions for construction projects I am a chartered structural engineer and a bing software developer so you can rest assured that I will strive to talk about the best practices and the use of new technologies in the industry and if you're embarking on a construction project or are involved in planning designing and building the world around us you'll find this podcast useful this episode is about the horrors of Nutri [Music] neutrality hey hi hello everybody how are you I bet you've noticed a little sleep on the release calendar sorry about that I could have likely accustomed you by now to the issue of a new episode every Monday morning but it is Thurs day now so what the hell brother you would ask I therefore Rush with an explanation the podcast is a new Endeavor of mine that I do not I do in my spare time to inform you dear listener on all aspects of architecture engineering and construction you may not be all that familiar with or would like to know more about I was initially inclined to give it a go at the end of every week putting some time aside on Sundays but the preparation recording editing and issuing of the podcast in combination with my busy professional and private life however proved Sundays to be not the best of solutions for me I've therefore spread the process across few days to make it more manageable I will soon make a dedicated web page for this podcast where you will be able to subscribe to stay informed when the new episodes are being released and will also give me the confidence that if Spotify ever chooses to dislike my podcast it will still have a platform and will remain intact I've just delivered Nine episodes on the plan of work telling you more or less how all steps of the project conception definition delivery and use are considered from a professional perspective now we are off to episode 10 did I just say 10 it is amazing how time flies and how quickly the numbers grow it was just the beginning of the year when I decided to come out to you with Bitner talks and it is now almost Easter and I can quietly celebrate the release of the 10th episode yeah that was a popping of a bottle of wine that I have later on when I finish recording this episode thank you all for listening I hope you will continue to find this podcast interesting for the next 90 episodes at least the information I hopefully you hopefully find helpful and my gu guidance useful now it will only take 10 times more to achieve my goal while the target is for at least 100 episodes so be patient still plenty to go you have if you have burning topics you would like to hear about do let me know in the comments below or message me on LinkedIn I'm also always Keen to hear other voices and other perspectives so if you are a fellow professional and would like to talk about the topic that is close to your heart I'm here for you I want you involved all right let's get to the interesting part so without further Ado let's dive into the horrors of nutrient [Music] neutrality I know I know catch a little title right horrors of nutrient neutrality but hey whose Horrors is it I think the building industry and property developers would like you to think it is theirs their horror as they cannot build and release their profits and by that they will tell you it is your horror because you cannot buy an affordable house if only right but truly it is everyone's horror not because it stops the creation of not sustainable developments but because it it needs to be enacted as our environment is already in dire traits if we want our rivers to resemble such likes of Y meong or gangis we may well do nothing but taking our position we should do everything in our power to avoid inputting more of this bad stuff into our ecosystem after all we are an educated Society or at least that is what we want to tell ourselves so let's look at the whole thing from a perspective of a person who would ordinarily make money on designing those buildings but it's glad that there are some powers in the legislation that allow sensible consideration of our most vulnerable sides it is important to acknowledge where is the whole thing coming from before judging whether it is right or wrong I will tell you a bit about legislation and governmental ideas surrounding it and the aim of the approach I will then move to how it is an issue AKA explain the world around us from the poop to the gloop finalizing with the likely future Solutions all right then let's go get on to [Music] it as ever all the harm in Britain is due to the EU Ambitions and their legislation it is often an argument against the legislation that it is yet another chain we need to drop after the departure from European Union the whole beginning of the neutron neutrality nightmare comes from European habitat and birds directive and is enacted within the UK law in the form of the conservation of habitats and species regulations 2017 the habitats regulations otherwise it is a legislation put in place to save God on the score no maybe double underscore and exclamation mark and now slowly and in capital letters valuable habitats and species thanks to this law we can identify and assign importance to some areas accordingly creating sacks and Spar for the lovers of for the lovers of abbreviations meaning special areas of conservation and special protection ction areas at the moment there are around 31 habitat sites sparing 27 catman's area and transversing a total of 74 out of 337 local planning authorities now if the assigned area is in a diet place when it comes to the nutrients it is assigned an unfavorable stages and the impact of new developments need to be taken in consideration to ensure no more strength is added to the system you know that additional stroll that broke the camels back applies here very well in 2018 the government published a 25-year environment plan which commits us to restore 75% of our 1 million hectar of terrestrial and freshwater protected sites to a favorable conditions by 2042 the plan concentrates on developing and working on environmentally sustainable farming storm overflows discharge reduction plans you know those smelly little pesky things that the water companies do where we want to go out with our kids to play on a very pesky here in Kent frankly planning requirements new strategic Water Resources management plans and drought plans will be put in place there'll be some changes to offat policy offat stands for water service regulation Authority environment act 2021 and environment Improvement plan so who is impacted by this any harmful projects proposed within the catchman area of the assigned habitat that is struggling or in the wordss of the legislature in unfavorable conditions that's the place that is impacted and that's the place that we need to look look closer closer at the local planning authorities have been instructed in line with the outcome of the Dutch nitrogen Cod ruling to only approve projects if they will not have any adverse effects Beyond reasonable scientific doubt what does it mean simples calculate the bloody thing calculate the bloody impact no fuing about just numbers place any potentially harmful developments that require planning permission and also developments covered by permitted development rights need to demonstrate that they will achieve nutr neutrality in affected areas this also applies to the projects with outstanding reserved matters which are potentially harmful developments well these are the developments that bring more nutrients to the area many projects can be considered as such but it is theculture and sewage affluent that does the most of the damage therefore all of the development concerned in increasing this activity or the nutrients that flowing from these activities will be the one that we are concerned here with taken we cannot exactly say what is the amount of contribution of the above sources to the nutrient load in UK Waters and to nutrient pollution how can we judge which development is harmful or which not to make things simpler we concentrate on the most prevalent types of nutrients that cause harm these are nitrates and phosphates the environment agency claims that agriculture is estimated to be source of around 70% of nitrates in rivers with sewage affluent that next most important at around 25 to 30% it is an old data though so think about it this way it only says about the percentage of total impact but what difference really does it make if there is more housing built in the catchment but less Farm the ratio will change but the impact will remain the environment agency also said in past reports that the estimation of the source of phosphorus in rivers is in the area of 60 to 60 to 80% that generated by that is generated by sewage affluent and 20 to 25% by agriculture so you get the picture albate from the pref financial crisis of early nautis data that Farms create most of the nitrates problems and housing is mostly responsible for phosphate problems and it's not housing per se it's not a brick that is a problem it is a poop that lands that lands in the sewage treatment plant that then discharges that back to the river I'm recording this podcast in Ashford Kent which is the borrow with nearly half of its land being part of the Stow river catchment which then in turn impacts fragile St marshes what this its impact on the development of the area well according to the local government association website of the information issued on the 9th of March 2023 around 90% of side allocations in the local plan and currently around 5,800 dwellings in over 170 planning applications have been affected quite a bit isn't it anyway so why is that even an issue we need a place to live in and to grow and graze our food and that is correct isn't it but taken we are a smart lot we can do this without killing habitats around us can't we yes the drive for money is great especially where you can realize a lot of profit from your developments but money is not enough to persuade any sensible human being to destroy the land and nature around them I've mentioned the two broad things we care about here with the nitrates and phosphates one mostly from Agriculture and the other from sewage why is this a problem well both of these are considered nutrients for growth of green stuff when it reaches our Waters water reservoirs it nourishes the plants within them nitrogen and phosphorus leads to the things called UT tropication which is a fancy way of basically saying doping of the system indeed the water reservo reservoir is then doped with those nutrients allowing for an increased growth of phytoplankton well otherwise algae that little green guys and plants which lead then to algal blooms and algal blooms are this pray as they spread over the surface of the water they block the Sun from reaching down below the water surface and if it doesn't reach to the lower surface of the water it cannot allow photosynthesis to happen so the plants do not create oxygen that's very very important in the water environment when all of that green stuff dies because it's been depleted from from oxygen or or just there is so much of that that it eventually dies and falls down to the bed of the reservoir it gets to the point where it's been eaten by clever microorganism which by the way need an oxygen to to digest those dead bodies to decompose that that stuff leading to the ultimately leading to the demise of the ecosystem within that body of water you see nothing can survive no no no animals or plants can survive without oxygen in the water so you see too much of a good stuff can kill you and too little of the good stuff in this case oxygen can too I like to call this process from poop to the gloop wait a minute but don't we have waste water treatment plants sure we do but as they process stands now we cannot remove all of the nutrients from the water at least not in the sensible way let's travel through the process shall we you see water condensates in the air and drops down on the ground some travel to the Sea some filters into the ground water some stays in the reservoirs from which we draw it to use in our houses when you flush that water it meets with all the flashes of the area and ends up in the wastewater treatment plant where it is simply filtered of no human waste solids and grits gathered along the way then human waste solids in form of slud Living Water ready for magic of bacterial action but before this happens bacteria in his air so the affluent is irated the bacteria does its job dies and in form of a slash is being taken away the remaining treated water goes through the planes of sunand filtering some more before being disinfected and released back to the water stream the pathogens are removed but nutrients remain now the only sensible way to remove the nutrients from the affluent is to let plants use it somewhere much earlier than the protected habitat when it comes to the agriculture the mechanism is simply the farmer spreads the fertilizer which travel to the ground with water Downstream so the only way to go about this is to either remove the activity from the area and or improve how it's done in any case we load the nature with extra nutrients and it if these nutrients destroy habitats of importance we should at least not add to the burden obviously such approach has consequences so for this reason the legislation gives us a way forward in the body of nutrient neutrality nutrient neutrality is just an intrm situation where we need to prove the proposed development will have no impact on the amount of nutrient added to the system it's basically simple adding in adding and subtracting of what was there before was going to be added any offsetting taken away from it and adding some factors like 20% on top of it just to make sure it's all correct and and off you go if you can prove that that's within the reason that's nutrient neutral then then you then you Dy then you great then you grant you can go on and do your development but otherwise you cannot legally and you shouldn't socially Housing Development are generally good to go if nutrient neutral meaning they can deal with their own sewage or offset the impact otherwise but within the catchment area it is all about the balance of the local ecosystem and the amount of water circulating through it it would be easy to say which is quite popular lately let's fly the sewage to Rwanda but for one it would cost unreasonable amount of money and for second it would not improve the existing system not to mention that removal of the water from the local ecosystem may lead to droughts so I leave you with the situation on the Rwanda front and your own opinion about that but yeah it doesn't make sense we need to deal with the problems where they are solve the problems find the solution and yeah and improve on that rather than trying to push it somewhere else the current approach to nutrient nutrient neutrality set itself on three pillars these are mitigation reduction and guidance so what's within the mitigation aspects of it nutron mitigation schemes can be used which basically means buying nutron credits someone else is do mitigation and then sells you credits for it that you can use local and private mitigation schemes like local treatment read treatment units local read beds or Wetlands this sort of things reducing pollution and the mitigation burden on new housing you see water companies improvements are General about in protected sides should be should be more stringes and and should should be concentrated mostly on the water companies are required to improve to achieve the highest technological levels of nutrient removal by the first of April 2030 where they where the outflow is within the within the area that's that's unfavorable water companies can use wetlands and read BS in read BS in combination with conventional techniques such as adding metal salts to waste water to remove more nutrients from waste water but yeah it's it's much more ecological and sustainable to let the nature do a thing do its thing than than using metal salts to remove the nutrients then government concentrate on providing certainty on more likely guidance telling you telling you what should be done to to to basically be up to scratch with the legislation you know guidance for cment specific nutrient calculation to assess the size of mitigation required the government will publish and publishes tools for assigning assisting in the design of wetlands for nutrient mitigation publish guidance for mitigation provide providers on how environmental payments from biodiversity net gain and nutrient mitigation can be combined provide advice about neutr neutrality and support in assessing the suitability of mitigation projects through increased capacity in Natural England Natural England itself is developing a framework for assessing the effectiveness of different type of mitigation and an Associated reference tool so there's so many things going on around it but the point is the neuton neutrality is a door is a side though if you like if you like to push through with your proposal in the fragile environment to allow you to build but yeah it's quite honorous to to actually be able to because there's not much to be to be chosen for the for the actual Improvement not much can be done not much of sensible things can be done to to actually address this issue there are there are some ideas for the for the change you know like maybe maybe we should transfer some of the Wastewater you know the the r one idea but that will one it will badly impact other plays Al bait yes it may not be fragile like like the one that that that that we're talking about here but the water depletion is another quite quite important thing to consider you know the ecosystem uses the water and you know we we need to work within that ecosystem otherwise we'll be taking water from one place put it into the other and droughts especially here down in southeast of England are are quite prevalent and yeah quite quite a bit of a problem so it's not we we're not very keen of removing that water from the ecosystem you know some of the ideas of of how how how to deal with this this issue is pocket treatment works like you know localized treatment centers localized treatment plants plus Wetlands but there are no guarantees of long-term proper operation of s such when you when you do a development and that won't be under the remit of the government the local local government what what is the what is a guarantee that it will actually work for a long time and we need to think here long time is 100 120 years old at least there is an idea of doing naves obviously we love our abbreviation so new appointment and variations to the existing providers of services like times water Southern water and whatever water but these these projects are difficult to fund it would be great if we could have a fund that that actually sees sustainable growth and operation of such places as a sustainable sustainable way of of gaining money but unfortunately the financial Market likes like it's a g of numbers it's not a game of it's not a real game we are just you know we are just stand buers that observe what's going on with that money as as it goes through in front of our eyes so the financial Market they want to do quick returns and having big projects running infrastructure is is not is not the the real one and even if we have that private money invested in this sort of projects most likely that money would be removed the the money would be jungled the money would be exchanged between different funds different trusts from from time to time concentrating on returns rather than on improving the actual infrastructure and that plant and and and the running and productivity of it so yeah variations additions to our existing existing water companies would be great but yeah we need to do it with with a head on our neck and most of the stuff especially in financial markets does not happen with with such another possibility is agricultural offsetting which means taking the land out of use buying a farm and getting rid of it but that addresses only the nitrat issue and when we come when it comes to the the property development most of the stuff we concerned about is phosphorus rather than nitrate but always that's you know one part of the whole equation and that can be added to it or subtracted from the actual load creation of wetlands read Wetlands re beds you know the the part that that treats the water that leaves the either local or or or general Waste Water treatment works or adding such to our existing Rivers routing s some of the flow through through these you know but but need to be obviously careful on that front to designing it the way so it doesn't doesn't keep the water removed from the flow down the stream obviously we need to improve H and we can improve housing water efficiency but saying that with the water efficiency the amount of effluent that that leaves is less but efficacy of it is sort of stays the same true be told we certainly need all of the stuff that I just mentioned but in reality improving the Waste Water Works on mass and allowing the excess nutrients digestions in wetlands and read bels is the only long-term viable solution and for this to happen we need to wait for funding Cycles to kick in and the time to realize those changes or perhaps set a fund that will invest money sustainably to create infrastructure run better than it is been run now and charg new development and local councils for the use you know there are some other approaches as well not as far as last year there was an attempt by the Housing Development Lobby to get rid of the nutrient neutrality but the common sense has prevailed funny for the amount of money in the circulation of these people how stupid was their argumentation seems they thought creation of the actual buildings is what is causing the damage not all the people using their toilets later on they've argumented that only 5% impact or thereabout do not hang me for it if I'm wrong is due to creation of housing developments you see without legislative action the financial system will continue to prioritize profit over environmental and sociates wellbe leading to detrimental consequences for both nature and future generation let's think about it for a moment the current Paradigm is the constant growth no matter what so what goes with it with profit maximization the financial system particularly in capitalist economies like ours often operates under the principle of maximizing those profits this drives this drive for profit usually leads to practices that prioritize short-term gains over long-term sustainability well not inventing the will here right do I but with that there com some costs that are external to to what the money is actually doing they call them externalities you know the external cost the that PO person for profit without regard for environment or social impacts can result well does result in negative externalities here we talk about neutral neutrality but simply with the housing prices it's it's quite the same and it's called and it's because its name is called externality in economics externalities are cost of benefits that affect cost or benefits that affect parties who did not choose to incure them in the case of the financial system these externalities often manifest as environmental degradation climate change social inequality and other forms of harm to communities and ecosystems it seems like the current the current news everyday news is the they're reporting on the damage caused by the externality of our financial system on the other hand we got regulatory failure and seeing with all of that money all of that finances the only way to influence that money to do the right things at the right time is regulations as much as I like the growth and and jist got that capitalistic th in me the the regulations are needed in the circumstances the what money can do without regulations is pretty bleak you see without effective legislation and regulation there are fewer constraints on the behavior of financi financial institutions and corporations why would there be any really right this lack of oversight leads to unchecked exploitation of resources and communities and here neutal neutrality here the protective habitat bill is that that type of control that unchecked exploitation can can go quite far and it's purely because the financial World prior prioritize short-term gains over over the long-term sustainability that gets us to the systematic risk you see overlooking environmental social consideration in financial decision making can contribute to systematic risk within the economy and we can keep on growing we could see the facet of growth as we see now but in fact it is all artificially pumped and we're just heading towards towards the wall with ever so increasing speed with our face looking forward not seeing the W and I think quite quickly we'll be able to that our nose will send us a message to our brain that hello here's the wall you see everything is interconnected and and you cannot remove one part from another another and although money and financial system is a driving force in our society in our economy it's all interconnected the systems are Inc connected the financial system is intricately connected to ecological systems and social well-being and VAR mental degradation can have far reaching impacts on economics and societies so be aware yeah you can push it as far as you want and then deal with consequ consequences but maybe we can think about them and avoid the bad ones the long-term sustainability is very important here failing to address the environmental and social impacts of the financial system generally undermines their prospects for long-term sustainability and resilience sustainable development requires balancing economic environmental and social objectives to ensure the wellbe of current and future generation Generations not only the wild race it currently transpires we are at the point where there is a need for Urgent legislative actions to steer the financial systems towards more sustainable and Equitable practices by implementing regulations that incentivize responsible behavior and penalize harmful practices governments can help mitigate the negative impacts of profit-driven finance and Foster a more sustainable and resilient economy for the [Music] future so to sum up really uh I'll be quite quick here the sources of excess nutrients are sight specific but mainly come from wastewater treatment works and agricultural pollution when you develop in the Catman areas of the fragile environment you need to think about the impact of your proposal more people staying overnight means more sewage means a big impact so if your proposal is permitted development but you increase the number of people living in the area you will still fall under the consideration of nutrient neutrality there are some schemes being made for helping with offsetting of some of the additional load like the Wetland mitigation framework which is a 30 million pounds nutrient mitigation scheme there is the Mandate for the water companies to upgrade wastewater treatment works there are environmental Improvement plans but I think that it is the most apparent to say that if the country want use the stick in the form of legislation we will soon be swamped by the affluent of our financial system which turns money for the most of the profit with no regards to Nature or the future I think it is very apparent and good to say that if the country won't use the stick in the form of legislation we will soon be swamped by the affluent of our financial system which turns money for the most of profit with no regards to Nature and future we will be always seems to be like like those alies we like the nutrients we have them more we'll grow then we die and kill the lake with us so that would sum it up let's go through for a few more words from me shall [Music] we there are plenty of aspects to consider when it comes to sustainability and the environment especially when it comes to the biggest impactor the biggest influencer of them all the big money what I mean by that is our financial Market the only way to directly influence this money is by a legislation and I think it is good to put as many obstacles in the way as possible perhaps if the Investments become difficult they will start investing in making the world a better place for starters finding and researching solutions for our problems rather than just using all there is for profit money is just a number in your Ledger a healthy ecosystem is the most expensive asset we have after all you cannot buy it you can only keep it in balance and hope nature will do the rest as much as I would love to be running around the side in my high V jacket and a hard heart cashing in for the design and advice I rather consult on sites that are more sustainable in bner we think in terms of squeen principles sustainability quality improvement and need any given project needs at least three of these qualities to be considered worthwhile in our office I will leave you with that keep high standards and carry on making the world a better place thank you again for listening please voice up your opinions I'm waiting for you on LinkedIn and I want to hear from you Toodloo!
Piotr Bytnar BEng (Hons) MSc CEng MIStructE
Chartered Structural Engineer who deals with the Architecture of buildings. His Master's Studies led him to an in-depth understanding of risk and contract arrangements in construction as well as specialist knowledge in soil mechanics.
He and his team help homeowners and property developers to design and deliver construction projects reducing waste in time and the cost. He believes that the construction project is an iterative process that can be well managed and it is best managed if all the aspects of the project definition and management are dealt with in-house or coordinated by one organisation. His team works to all stages of RIBA and ISTRUCTE stages of work and enables contractors to deliver projects on-site providing risk evaluations, methodologies for execution of works and temporary works designs.
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