Maryhelen Shuman-Groh
Roseau is the nation’s capital and its largest city. It has one of the oldest existing systems and also the country’s newest drinking water treatment plant.
The new drinking water facility is located in the city’s heights at the existing holding tanks.
The intake is at the Springfield River. This isn’t too difficult a walk but it does involve climbing and descending metal ladders to a platform crossing the river. The work being conducted today is the large bypass pipe line and is really interesting to watch. In this area it would be impossible to bring in heavy machinery so the six foot section of heavy pipe was hauled in manually and will be replacing the opening segment of the by-pass intake. The previous section had already been removed before our arrival. It really is pretty amazing to see how the crew works together to block the river flow with quickly constructed rock dams, negotiate the huge heavy iron pipe into the opening and set it. They then ’deconstruct’ the dam and open valves to test the water flow. As this is the by-pass, it is closed again.
I am given an overview of the intake process from the Springfield River. This is by far the largest intake on the island. It is also the oldest.
Traveling downhill from the intake site, we arrive at the new drinking water treatment facility. This is a brand new facility. My laboratory supervisor and mentor here, Mrs. Etienne, has not seen the full facility in operation since the upgrade and is just as interested in its operation as I am. The site supervisor walks us through the new facility.
One of the most notable features of this facility is that it also runs primarily by gravity with the exception of the flushers and back washees which kick into operation every 24 hours. These processes are computer monitored and will operate more often if there is any reason to do so.
There is a very large holding area outside the treatment facility that will soon be enclosed and act as post treatment holding.
I don’t have nearly as many pictures of this area as I would have liked. In my efforts to download and clear my memory card last night, I inadvertently left it in the laptop and find myself with limited memory in the camera today.
Post will be updated with photos when I am able to get them out of the camera hard memory.