The Water & Sewerage Corporation yesterday signed an agreement to provide Bah Mar and western New Providence with wastewater treatment services through a $7.5 million plant off Gladstone Road.

The plant, which will be able to handle one million gallons per day, will treat wastewater from both the $2.6 billion resort project and communities such as Skyline Lakes, Lake Cunningham, High Point Drive, Westridge and Gladstone Road.

The contracts signed yesterday also involve the Water & Sewerage Corporation supplying Baha Mar with 500,000 gallons of potable water daily, on a ‘take or pay basis’.

That agreement, made retroactive to January 1, 2012, is for five years and subject to two five-year extensions.

Meanwhile, Bradley Roberts, the Water & Sewerage Corporation’ chairman, said the separate wastewater treatment agreement involved treating 450,000 wastewater gallons from Baha Mar daily.

Some 300,000 gallons of that are guaranteed for return to Baha Mar, which will use the supply for irrigation.

The wastewater deal, which takes effect from New Year’s Eve this year, commit the Water & Sewerage Corporation to start operations at the new plant on New Year’s Day 2015. The agreement is for 15 years, with two five-year extensions.

Mr Roberts said the contract to design, and build, the wastewater treatment plant had been handed to an all-Bahamian joint venture, Nassau Island Development Company and Emerene Engineering and Construction Company.

The job is expected to complete, and the plant operational, by March 2014. Between 150-200 persons are expected to be employed on the construction, which is being financed by a $7.5 million loan from the National Insurance Board (NIB).

Mr Roberts described the joint venture contract as “a clear example” of the Government “empowering Bahamians through Public Private Partnerships (PPP).

“The PPP brings together a Bahamian joint venture team to design and build the first ever modern tertiary wastewater treatment plant of its kind in the Bahamas. The Baha Mar agreements, with their underlying guarantees, are a positive step towards the Corporation becoming less dependent on government subsidies as we go forward.”

And he added: “What distinguishes this government and current Board of Directors from their predecessors, is the fact that the previous government and Board sought to outsource the potential profits of the wastewater treatment plant, as opposed to retaining the same as a part of the Corporation’s portfolio.”

Emphasising what the Water & Sewerage Corporation sees as the benefits from the Gladstone Road Wastewater Treatment Plant deal, Mr Roberts said it was “a win-win situation for the Bahamian public, Baha Mar and the Corporation”.

He added that it protected “our environment and groundwater resources via the collection, treatment and proper disposal of up to one million imperial gallons per day of wastewater via the most modern, state-of-the-art facility ever constructed in the Bahamas”

It would also, Mr Roberts said, reduce New Providence’s energy demand by the re-use water for irrigation purposes rather than employing desalinated water.

He added that it was a “long-term, guaranteed, cost effective solution for Baha Mar’s potable water, irrigation water and wastewater requirements”

And the Water & Sewerage Corporation had secured “a major, long-term water and wastewater services contract for the Corporation, thus improving our financial viability”.

CAPTIONS:

Seated from L to R at the contract signing ceremony are Audley Hanna, deputy chairman of the Water and Sewerage Corporation; Bradley B. Roberts, chairman of the Water and Sewerage Corporation; and Robert ‘Sandy’ Sands, vice-president of government and public affairs at Baha Mar.

Bradley Roberts and Robert Sands shake hands after formally signing an agreement for the supply of both potable and grey water by the Water & Sewerage Corporation to Baha Mar in addition to wastewater treatment services.