Two months after the V.I. Water and Power Authority was forced to ration water on St. Thomas thanks to technical problems at the Randolph Harley Power Plant, a temporary reverse osmosis (RO) plant has helped WAPA stockpile more than 10 times the volume of water the agency originally contracted with Seven Seas Water for.
WAPA was in the process of signing an agreement with Seven Seas Water for a permanent RO facility when the water system began to experience problems in December, and an amended contract with Seven Seas for temporary RO units was signed in December 2011 to help “bridge the gap,” until the new plant came online, WAPA Executive Director Hugo Hodge Jr. said Thursday.
“At that time, we had no storage and no water being produced,” Hodge said. “The temporary units were brought in to help us get back to serving the customers.”
The amended contract with Seven Seas was for 2 million gallons of temporary water, but at this point, WAPA has about 23 million gallons in storage, Hodge said. WAPA’s tanks can hold up to 34 million gallons and Hodge said that once they are filled, he plans on turning off the authority’s old IDE units.
Seven Seas Chief Executive Officer Doug Brown said being able to get WAPA to a full 2 million gallons of capacity by Jan. 10 – or, within 46 days – was a “major accomplishment.”
“I’m not aware that has been accomplished anywhere else,” Brown said. “And that was able to happen because of a couple of reasons, the first of which is that the cooperation between WAPA and Seven Seas has been terrific. When we signed the agreement, we viewed our role as being water partners with WAPA and that’s what we are going to continue to do.”
Work on the new permanent facility is in the beginning stages, and Hodge said it should be completed by the end of the year.
“We received final notification that all permits are complete for the final water system, and we are now working on getting everything ready to accommodate it,” Hodge said. Thursday’s tour was conducted at the Randolph Harley Power Plant, which Hodge said is being retrofitted to make room for the new system.
Hodge said one of the benefits of the RO system is that it uses ultra-pure water, which will help the boilers run more smoothly, and help with emissions control during production. During a recent WAPA meeting, Hodge said that once the water situation was stabilized, the authority might also be able to ask the Public Services Commission for as much as a $2 reduction in the water LEAC (Levelized Energy Adjustment Clause) for the next quarter.
“We’re putting something in place that can take the territory for the next 20 or 30 years,” Hodge said Thursday. “Now we can focus on the power side, and getting things stabilized over there.”
