TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Desal Plant Is Meeting Production Targets

ADVERTISEMENT

By MIKE SALINERO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 16, 2007

CLEARWATER - After nearly four years of frustrations, disappointments and delays, Tampa Bay Water is on the verge of making history with the nation's largest fully functioning desalination plant.

The regional water supplier's board learned Monday that the Apollo Beach plant has been producing 25 million gallons of water a day since Oct. 1. It's the first time the plant has been able to meet its production goals over a prolonged period.

American Water-Pridesa, the company hired to fix problems that shuttered the plant in June 2005, said it will be fully operational by about the first of the year.

'We'll start the year with the plant running the way everybody expected it to run,' said Kent Turner, a member of American Water-Pridesa's board of directors.

The plant opened in 2003, but has never functioned correctly. One of the main problems was that the Bay water, high in concentrations of sediments and microscopic animals, continually clogged the high-priced reverse osmosis filters designed to remove the salt.

A key breakthrough occurred several weeks ago when engineers came up with a new way to continuously coat a prefiltering system that removes the larger floating materials before the water goes to the salt-removing filters.

The pretreatment filters were clogging after just 12 hours of operation and had to be backwashed and recoated with a medium that filters the grit. The coating is like a fine powder, similar to that used in pool filters, said Ken Herd, project director for Tampa Bay Water.

Herd said the engineers figured out that if they provided a continuous supply of coating to the filters, they would run 24 hours or more before having to be cleaned.

'The pretreatment system has kind of been the Achilles' heel of this plant from the very beginning,' Herd said. 'This was the final step to get the system to the point where we can run it at capacity.'
Water planners in coastal states see desalination as an important tool to meet the water needs of a growing population. Turner said that after he addressed the board, he was flying to Monterey, Calif., where another large-scale desalination plant is planned.

'I fully understand the importance of this plant,' Turner said. 'I fully understand the impact to the United States.'

Board member and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker asked Turner if any other desalination plant in the country had produced 25 million gallons a day for 12 days.

'I don't think so,' Turner said.

'I would think that would be a significant thing,' Baker replied.

American Water, a German-Spanish consortium, has agreed to pay Tampa Bay Water $600,000 in penalties for missing several deadlines. The plant was supposed to be up and running in October 2006.

Tampa Bay Water has paid the company about $26 million so far for its work on the plant, with about $3 million more due when the plant is fully operational. American Water will continue to run the plant for 18 years.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT