TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Desal plant restarts today after Sunday's shutdown

ADVERTISEMENT

TBO.com

Published: November 10, 2009

TAMPA - The region's desalination plant started running today after being shut down nearly 48 hours because of problems caused by a power failure on Sunday.

The plant in Apollo Beach was running at its maximum capacity of more than 25 million gallons a day when it lost power about 1 p.m. Sunday.

That caused valves in the plant to shut and water to reverse direction at high pressure. The effect is called "water hammer," said Michelle Biddle Rapp, spokeswoman for Tampa Bay Water, the plant's owner.

The water caused some pipes to leak and the plant had to be shut down, she said.

The utility officials hoped the plant could begin providing water to the region's supply by this evening after finishing a series of water quality tests.

The plant was running full-tilt because Tampa Bay Water wants to cut what it takes from wellfields as much as possible.

The plant has experienced other power failures but the result Sunday was more severe because it was running at high speed.

The utility that provides water to Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Tampa, St. Petersburg and New Port Richey over-used its wellfields during the spring because its reservoir went dry in March.

The utility is under pressure from regulators to bring pumping at wellfields below permitted levels by the end of the year.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT