The closing down of the desalination plant at Crocus Bay, going into some two years, resulting in a shortage of portable water in Anguilla, due mainly to monies owed by the Water Corporation to the operator, General Electric (GE), is now being followed by the dismantling and shipping out of the equipment. This week a Tropical Shipping container has been on the site for packing up the material. According to a spokesman there, who could not speak specifically or in detail, the equipment is being shipped for use elsewhere. He declined to say exactly where the shipment would be heading.
The desalination or reverse osmosis plant has had previous operators before GE. “The operation at Crocus Bay was [first] a water purchase arrangement, signed between the Government of Anguilla and Aqua Design at the time in 1998, for the supply of portable water to the citizenry of the island,” Mr Rommel Hughes, CEO of the Anguilla Water Corporation, recalled. “That arrangement was amended, I think, three times between 1998 and 2012 when the operation stopped. During that period, the water purchase agreement was purchased by Ionics Water Company and then Ionics was subsequently purchased by GE.
“Over the last five or six years Aqua Design was a subsidiary of Electric Company of America. In 2008 the Government of Anguilla privatised the Water Department and made it a statutory body and all the contracts and operational detail once owned by the department was subsequently turned over to the corporation as well as the water purchase contract and the facility at Crocus Bay.
Mr Hughes said that as a result of the world recession, and the high cost of fuel, the cost of water at the desalination plant quickly doubled. As a result, it became untenable for the Water Corporation to be able to meet the cost of the water and eventually could not pay GE for the water it was providing. He stated that after a year of outstanding bills, from April to 2011 to 2012, “GE decided to pull the plug and stop the delivery of water.”
The CEO continued: “They did stop the operation and we tried as best as we could to pay off the debt owed to GE. During that time, with the assistance of Government, we paid approximately 550,000 US dollars to GE on the outstanding debt. The outstanding amount was approximately 2 million US dollars. GE subsequently filed a claim in court against the Water Corporation and the Government of Anguilla, and the case subsequently went to mediation. During the mediation process, we made a substantive offer to pay off the remaining portion of monies on the two million dollars.
“GE in their wisdom felt that it wasn’t sufficient in that they felt they should be paid interest.” He said that with the Water Corporation having its own claims, the mediation process eventually broke down. According to him, the water purchase agreement was due to expire in 2015 at which time the plant would have reverted to the Government and people of Anguilla. The plant was closed by GE in 2012.
Mr Hughes continued: “The current situation is that the Executive Council/Government is still talking with GE to come to some arrangement so that they can vacate the premises. The Water Corporation would then be able to move on with procuring a water supply from whichever purveyor is willing to enter into an agreement to provide us with a reasonable price for the service.”
Noting that the desalination plant is an area where there is a current development, Mr Hughes said, “to give away, lease or sell that property would negate all of the investment we have made there.” He further stated: “Some members of the administration think that the property down there would be more useful in the hands of the developer who has recently populated the Crocus Hill Bay area. From my standpoint, however, there exists within that property and its environs, a considerable amount of costly infrastructure which the Government and people of Anguilla, through the Water Department, and, subsequently through the Water Corporation, have invested heavily in.
“As I said, to give away, lease or sell that property would negate all the investment that has been made therein. It has a brine outfall which was put in, in 1998, at just under half a million US dollars paid for by the Government. It has a seawater intake which was put in at approximately the same price. The seawater outfall is about 3,000 feet out into relatively deep water with high currents to facilitate mixing of the brine if and when it is discharged out there. It is a neatly-located position for such a facility. Plus, there is about a quarter mile transmission 8-inch pipeline that moves finished water from Crocus Bay to the Crocus Hill storage tank. That was paid for over the last 12 or 13 years.”
Mr Hughes pointed out that the Water Corporation “currently provides water to the public from the brackish water plant which only produces about two thirds of the island’s demands” from The Valley Well Field. He stressed that “there is a need for an additional 200,000 gallons of water a day to ensure that we can have a continuous and viable supply of portable water.” He contended that “the best and most opportune location for siting such a facility is right at that site because it has all the amenities that are required, and it is ours.”
Mr Hughes added: “Personally, I feel, given the duration that we paid for the entire infrastructure on the site, including the building, it should be ours…Whether the building stays or goes, that is only a miniscule part of the entire infrastructure which is absolutely necessary for us to process and deliver water to the people of Anguilla.”
While the situation continues, one thing is certain: Anguilla cannot continue to endure the regular rationing of water. According to one commentator, “We seem to be almost back in the pre-revolutionary days under the Bradshaw regime in St Kitts when there was no running water in Anguilla.”
