Tampa Bay Water wants the plant turned off, saying salt filters have been damaged. The operator refuses.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published January 10, 2004
Tampa Bay Water has ordered its troubled desalination plant shut down for a month amid concerns that the membranes used to filter salt out of the water have been damaged by its main contractor.
But Covanta Tampa Construction, which is operating the $110-million plant, refuses to turn it off. The standoff marks a new stage in the bitter dispute between Tampa Bay Water and Covanta.
"We don't have any intention of stopping the operation of this facility if we're not convinced we're doing any undue harm," Covanta vice president Scott Whitney said Friday.
But the company that makes the membranes contends Covanta has damaged them so much that it will not honor the warranty.
Covanta filed for bankruptcy in New York in October, just as Tampa Bay Water was on the verge of firing the company over repeated delays in finishing the plant. Filing for bankruptcy blocked the firing, and also prevents Tampa Bay Water from sending in workers to shut down the plant, the largest in the nation.
"Our hands are tied," said Tampa Bay Water engineering manager Ken Herd. "We can't physically go out and close the valve."
The membranes are crucial to the plant's operation, and their long life is crucial to the rates customers will pay.
Each of the 10,000 membranes costs $500, so replacing all of them would total $5-million, Herd said. In setting water rates, Tampa Bay Water planned on each membrane lasting five to seven years. Replacing them more often would drive up water rates, utility officials say.
The Apollo Beach desal plant is supposed to take 40-million gallons of seawater every day, force it through the tightly woven membranes and produce 25-million gallons of freshwater and 15-million gallons of brine.
The seawater comes from Tampa Electric Co.'s Big Bend plant, one of the first places that an exotic invader, the Asian green mussel, was discovered in the United States. According to Covanta, tiny hairs and other organic material from the mussels have clogged the desal plant's membranes faster than expected, requiring extensive cleaning.
That led to a dispute with Hillsborough County over disposal of the cleaning solution, and extensive delays in completing the plant. In October, Tampa Bay Water declared Covanta in default.
Although the plant is still not officially finished, Covanta has nevertheless been producing about 20-million gallons of drinking water a day. Utility officials recently told a judge they desperately need that water to slake the thirst of 2-million people in Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas County.
Whitney said he was confused by Tampa Bay Water's recent demand that the plant shut down. "Do they need the water or don't they?" he asked.
The problem is that on Christmas Eve the attorney for the manufacturer of the membranes, a California company called Hydranautics, notified Tampa Bay Water officials that in producing all that water Covanta was messing up the membranes.
In fact, Orlando attorney Ben Subin wrote, Covanta had so abused the membranes that Hydranautics now considers its warranty on them to be void. Covanta is pumping the water through the membranes at too high a pressure, he wrote, damaging their ability to let water through while filtering out everything else.
Whitney contended the pressure is within the limits set by Tampa Bay Water and Hydranautics, and thus there is no reason to stop.
But Herd compared it to revving a car's engine to a dangerous level just to go 30 mph.
"Maybe the car's running now," he said, "but it's not going to be run long in that condition."
