During the deliberations of Standing Finance Committee earlier this year, officials described a hectic period after Ocean Conversion-BVI handed the Baughers Bay desalination plant to government in March 2010.
The handover came after 10 years of disagreements between former owner-operator OC-BVI and government, its only customer.
Asked about the Water and Sewerage Department’s involvement at the plant, Bernard Grant, acting deputy director of the WSD, told legislators the department first struggled to keep the facility operational, according to the SFC report.
“When the plant was initially turned over to government, there was a desperate need for the plant to be activated,” Mr. Grant is recorded as saying in the report. A handful of WSD employees were brought in to monitor the plant, and they were “given a crash course from Aqua Design to look at all the vital instrumentation,” Mr. Grant explained, referring to the company that also runs water plants in Sea Cows Bay and Cappoons Bay.
“When a situation arose that was out of the employees’ reach, the matter was reported to ministry officials, who in turn contacted Aqua Design for any repair work,” the report records Mr. Grant as saying.
That situation lasted four months, the report states. After that, the Ministry of Communications and Works hired “external personnel to continue the direct monitoring of the plant on a 24-hour basis.”
Things seem to have calmed down since. Reached by phone this week, Manoherlal Kerof, acting director of WSD, said that despite challenges, the department has been managing the plant, which was a challenge to operate even before government took it over.
See the May 3, 2012 edition for full coverage.
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