Aqueduct for East Santo Domingo is almost ready
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.- The aqueduct for East Santo Domingo, a project that has had fits and starts and stumbles for ten years, is closing in on the start of operations, and is processing water at 75% of capacity, according to the Aqueduct and Sewer Corporation of Santo Domingo (CAASD).
Conceived to treat four cubic meters a second, some 90 million gallons a day, the infrastructure is pumping three cubic meters, because it started up the second of two modules at the water treatment plant.
"Thanks to the trial phase of the second module, there has been a significant improvement," the sub-director of Operations for the CAASD, Luis Salcedo told DL. He assured the reporters that with the new module in service there are parts of East Santo Domingo that receive water everyday.
However, the general population still does not perceive these advances with equal appreciation, although they recognize comparative improvements since the start up of the first module. Jose Mendoza resides in Ana Teresa Balaguer, one of those sectors that the official cites on the list of those that get water every day. "That's not true, it comes three times a week, because it got better about two years ago. But this is water full of salts that even damages the drainage pipes," tells Mendoza.
A tour around the installations allows one to prove that the intake and water treatment plant have all the elements for production and only lack access roads and finishing touches. According to Salcedo, the project will be fully functional "within a relatively short period, with regards to the infrastructure for producing water. It is expected to be finished this month."
If the projection is fulfilled, a great many of the problems of water scarcity in an area that is filled with health issues, extra expenses, and disturbances over the poor service will be solved. "We hope that when the project is finished the water deficit will be diminished by 90%, because there will always be work going on and things to do, the population growth has been highly accelerated and there are sectors where that aren't even any pipes."
Nevertheless, the macro-system or joining of pipes, will still take "some months" before it get to barrios that are under study and supply more than a million inhabitants, explained Salcedo. The construction began in 1999 and the 2002 census revealed that the province of Santo Domingo had 1.8 million persons of which 878,000 of them lived in East Santo Domingo.
The start up of this new infrastructure will take pressure off of the Valdesia-Santo Domingo Aqueduct that transfers water to East Santo Domingo on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Last weekend, the contractors closed the ditch in which the pipes to the San Isidro Highway, between Las Americas and Charles De Gaulle were placed.
According to Salcedo, the excavations will start in other places due to the fact that they have to take turns because of traffic concerns. This "macro-system" is one of the four components of the aqueduct.
Another is the intake and the "salinity barrier", located in the community of El Naranjo in San Luis, which takes water from the confluence of the Ozama and Yabacoa rivers. Before, these rivers used to be contaminated by salt water because their watersheds were very low-laying; the dam is there to keep the water a meter above sea level.
A kilometer away is the treatment plant, composed of two modules for processing with filters, a sedimentation pond where aluminum sulfate is added along with aluminum poly-chloride, a 60 foot tower to regulate water pressure as well as an area for chlorification.
The fourth component consists of three water tanks for storing 24 million gallons that the government expects to install on a small mesa near the San Isidro Highway approximately a kilometer and a half to the east of Charles de Gaulle Ave. This is part of the project that is showing the greatest delays. Salcedo explained that the system is conceived to function with the storage tanks as an integrated part. However, it is currently using some simulator valves that send water at a pressure similar to what it would be if the tanks were actually on line.
This phase is currently in the bidding process with the intention that the tanks can be constructed this year, in spite of which the pipes and connections are already in place.
This project has taken three Fernandez administrations and one of Hipólito Mejia. Conceived in 1971 and designed in 1995, the East Santo Domingo Aqueduct was assigned in 1999 to the Dominico-Italian Consortium Impregilo-Civilcad at a cost of RD$1,618 billion. In 2003, the job was quoted at RD$2.03 billion, without the distribution network that was quoted at RD$467 million. The Communications Department at CAASD said that now the price tag will be close to RD$5.0 billion of which RD$4.844 have been spent.
Conceived to treat four cubic meters a second, some 90 million gallons a day, the infrastructure is pumping three cubic meters, because it started up the second of two modules at the water treatment plant.
"Thanks to the trial phase of the second module, there has been a significant improvement," the sub-director of Operations for the CAASD, Luis Salcedo told DL. He assured the reporters that with the new module in service there are parts of East Santo Domingo that receive water everyday.
However, the general population still does not perceive these advances with equal appreciation, although they recognize comparative improvements since the start up of the first module. Jose Mendoza resides in Ana Teresa Balaguer, one of those sectors that the official cites on the list of those that get water every day. "That's not true, it comes three times a week, because it got better about two years ago. But this is water full of salts that even damages the drainage pipes," tells Mendoza.
A tour around the installations allows one to prove that the intake and water treatment plant have all the elements for production and only lack access roads and finishing touches. According to Salcedo, the project will be fully functional "within a relatively short period, with regards to the infrastructure for producing water. It is expected to be finished this month."
If the projection is fulfilled, a great many of the problems of water scarcity in an area that is filled with health issues, extra expenses, and disturbances over the poor service will be solved. "We hope that when the project is finished the water deficit will be diminished by 90%, because there will always be work going on and things to do, the population growth has been highly accelerated and there are sectors where that aren't even any pipes."
Nevertheless, the macro-system or joining of pipes, will still take "some months" before it get to barrios that are under study and supply more than a million inhabitants, explained Salcedo. The construction began in 1999 and the 2002 census revealed that the province of Santo Domingo had 1.8 million persons of which 878,000 of them lived in East Santo Domingo.
The start up of this new infrastructure will take pressure off of the Valdesia-Santo Domingo Aqueduct that transfers water to East Santo Domingo on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Last weekend, the contractors closed the ditch in which the pipes to the San Isidro Highway, between Las Americas and Charles De Gaulle were placed.
According to Salcedo, the excavations will start in other places due to the fact that they have to take turns because of traffic concerns. This "macro-system" is one of the four components of the aqueduct.
Another is the intake and the "salinity barrier", located in the community of El Naranjo in San Luis, which takes water from the confluence of the Ozama and Yabacoa rivers. Before, these rivers used to be contaminated by salt water because their watersheds were very low-laying; the dam is there to keep the water a meter above sea level.
A kilometer away is the treatment plant, composed of two modules for processing with filters, a sedimentation pond where aluminum sulfate is added along with aluminum poly-chloride, a 60 foot tower to regulate water pressure as well as an area for chlorification.
The fourth component consists of three water tanks for storing 24 million gallons that the government expects to install on a small mesa near the San Isidro Highway approximately a kilometer and a half to the east of Charles de Gaulle Ave. This is part of the project that is showing the greatest delays. Salcedo explained that the system is conceived to function with the storage tanks as an integrated part. However, it is currently using some simulator valves that send water at a pressure similar to what it would be if the tanks were actually on line.
This phase is currently in the bidding process with the intention that the tanks can be constructed this year, in spite of which the pipes and connections are already in place.
This project has taken three Fernandez administrations and one of Hipólito Mejia. Conceived in 1971 and designed in 1995, the East Santo Domingo Aqueduct was assigned in 1999 to the Dominico-Italian Consortium Impregilo-Civilcad at a cost of RD$1,618 billion. In 2003, the job was quoted at RD$2.03 billion, without the distribution network that was quoted at RD$467 million. The Communications Department at CAASD said that now the price tag will be close to RD$5.0 billion of which RD$4.844 have been spent.
En portadaVer todos
Arrestan a cuatro dominicanos en PR con un alijo de cocaína valorado en 2.6 millones de dólares
EE.UU. ha enviado 475 vuelos de deportación a Colombia en los últimos cinco años
Joaquín Sabina: un viaje literario a través de las letras y los autores que esconden sus canciones
Oposición puertorriqueña condena la redada contra inmigrantes y pide acción del Gobierno