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Desal repairs may miss 2006

By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published November 21, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [Times files, 2003]

Tampa Bay Water's troubled desalination plant, which was supposed to be ready just before Christmas, has been delayed again, probably until after New Year's Day, executive director Jerry Maxwell said Monday.

Exactly when after New Year's is the question. Maxwell said the German-Spanish consortium that's repairing the plant, American Water Pridesa, had yet to give him a new completion date.

Last week, Don Correll, the new chief executive officer of the German company American Water, told a Times reporter that the Apollo Beach facility would probably not be ready before spring.

That would be bad news for Tampa Bay Water, since spring is the dry season, a time of higher water demand and generally less supply. After the interview, a company spokesman said Correll was mistaken and construction was on schedule.

If Correll was right, though, "that would very much be a concern to us, a very significant concern," Maxwell said.

But company spokeswoman Kimberly Cooper said the plant would not be delayed that long.

"It's going to be ready before spring," she said. She said the finished product will be something Tampa Bay Water can be proud of, and in the meantime "it's unfortunate there are a few hiccups."

Maxwell said the company was supposed to start by Wednesday a 16-day process of getting the plant ready for a grueling test run that would go 24 hours a day over 30 days. But over the weekend, company officials informed Maxwell that they would not be ready by Wednesday and that would likely push everything else back, too.

"They had to finally admit they were not going to be able to make it, but they were reluctant to do that," he said.

When Maxwell told the utility's board members about the delay, they weren't shocked because of all the previous problems with the desal plant, said board member Ann Hildebrand, a Pasco County commissioner.

"This is what I call the 'Oh, by the way' project," Hildebrand said. "It was going to be ready by this date, but oh, by the way, it's going to be another date."

Plant is years overdue

The Apollo Beach plant, the largest in the United States, was supposed to begin operating by 2003. It was designed to take 40-million gallons of seawater from Tampa Bay, filter out the salt and turn it into 25-million gallons of drinking water a day, lessening the environmental impact of pumping groundwater.

The plant has been plagued by problems from the start, ranging from contractors going bankrupt to Asian green mussels clogging its water intakes to the discovery that many of the plant's water pumps had rusted.

The plant originally was expected to cost $110-million. Two years ago, Tampa Bay Water paid the company that was supposed to run the plant, Covanta Tampa Bay, $4.4-million to go away so someone else could fix the plant and run it. The utility hired American Water Pridesa, based on its bid of $29-million - an added expense that will boost the cost of the water from the plant by 9 cents for every 1,000 gallons for its 2-million customers.

Fixing the plant is complicated enough to begin with, Maxwell said, because its series of filters has to operate in sequence and synchronization. Meanwhile, he said, the contractor kept finding unforeseen problems that needed fixing, too.

"They've kept tweaking and testing and probing," he said.

For instance, the company originally was going to squeeze a new chemical process into the plant's existing building, but then discovered there was no room, said Ken Herd, Tampa Bay Water's director of operations and facilities. So instead the company built a new chemical building, he said.

The additions won't add to the cost of the repairs, Maxwell said, but it will likely be cited as a major reason for the delay. Another problem is the upcoming holiday season, because "nobody wants to be in a 24-hour-a-day testing mode over a substantial holiday," Maxwell said.

Despite the bad news, Hildebrand remained upbeat about the plant's future.

"I guess," she said, "we have to hope good things are worth waiting for."

Times staff writers Scott Barancik and Jean Heller contributed to this story. Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@sptimes.com or 727 893-8530.

By the numbers

$110-million: Anticipated cost of the desalination plant in 2001.

$140-million: Anticipated cost of the plant in 2005.

$4.4-million: The amount Tampa Bay Water paid Covanta Tampa Bay to let another company fix and run the plant.

$29-million: The amount American Water Pridesa bid to repair the plant.

25-million: The number of gallons of drinking water that the plant was expected to produce daily, starting in 2003.

[Last modified November 20, 2006, 23:42:00]