WaterY2kOne!? ;-) - 'Water companies join forces to combat Y2K threat
Twenty-nine UK water operators today agreed to work
together to ensure that the national supply is not
disrupted by the millennium bug. Water UK, the national
trade association formed earlier this year, has launched
a scheme whereby its members, normally competitors,
promise to collaborate to tackle the bug. "None of us
will stand by and let one of our competitors fail," said a
spokesman.
The next step is intended to be a broader collaborative
agreement between all the members of the Utilities
Interest Group, which includes electricity and
telecommunications as well as water suppliers. This is
regarded by the water operators as crucial, because
although they feel confident about the compliance of
their own systems, they still have doubts about the
power supply on which they depend. The water
industry is one of the biggest users of embedded chips,
which are installed in millions in pumping stations and
water treatment and sewerage works. A Water UK
spokesman said that, despite concern expressed
recently by Don Cruickshank, chairman of the
government taskforce Action 2000, the water industry
was well advanced with its compliance work.
But it was still concerned about contingency planning
because it had no guidance on what contingencies to
plan for. Any serious problems were most likely to be
caused by a power failure, he added.
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