Water production plant equipment in St. Maarten

Minister Cornelius De Weever, responsible for production, distribution and quality of water, visited the expansion of the drinking water production facilities at the harbour cargo area in Pointe Blanche to see the progress.

Seven Seas Water, as per agreement with Government, will build two new Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plants, one of which is in full construction. This plant is designed for a maximum production of 3700 m3 per day.

To supply the plants with (feed) sea water, an intake system is being built at the end of the Cargo quay. The intake consists of suction pipes in sea and running to a concrete bunker type pump house, a seven hundred meters long underground discharge line to the plant(s) in the Yellow Building and a GEBE transformer station at (part of) the pump house.

The design, in particular of the sea water intake system, takes into account extreme weather conditions and the corrosive environment at the end of the quay. The feed water pump house and its transformer building, including the roof, are built with adequately reinforced cast concrete. Intake lines are high density poly ethylene pipes (hdpe), for high operational pressure conditions. The feed line is of the same hdpe material and laid underground on the harbour cargo are for many good reasons. The decision to choose for the alternative open sea intake was necessary as deep wells near the building cannot produce the required volume of feed water.

Completion is expected in the first quarter of 2014. The Harbour Companies, Contractor MNO and GEBE understand the urgency to have the intake operational and are fully cooperating, therefore; the exact date depends on the date GEBE will complete its drinking water pump house for distribution for the product water and the transformer station to supply electricity to the new Pointe Blanche water plants. As soon as power is available the plant will startup and produce water. Not only will the new plant provide the additional and much needed capacity to safeguard the production of drinking water for the community, but it will also allow for other production units to be scheduled out for maintenance. Presently all plants run at full capacity to meet the consumption and water losses, while consumption is increasing significantly as we are entering the high season.