The Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) reports significant progress on two critical water infrastructure projects that officials say will eliminate chronic water shortages across the twin-island nation by the middle of next year.
Minister of Public Utilities Melford Nicholas led a site tour yesterday to showcase the state of construction at the new reverse osmosis plant at Barnacle Point and the restoration of the long-dormant Buckley’s reservoir tank.
The Barnacle Point facility, which is set to hold double the capacity of the existing plant at Ffryes, will produce two million gallons of water daily when it becomes operational in October or November 2025.
Sean Peters, Systems Management Specialist in the APUA Water Business Unit, confirmed that all equipment was already on site with installation of much of the equipment in progress.
“Our timeline, based on the progress that we’re seeing right now, is about the end of October, November,” Peters told Observer media during the site visit.
This timeline follows project delays due to concrete and aggregate shortages as well as rain interruptions, requiring the construction team, which includes around 28 labourers, to work around the clock to maintain momentum.
According to APUA officials, once the foundation work has been completed at the site, they expect delays in construction work due to rainfall would be minimised.
The facility features three intake pumps to draw seawater into a single pipe system, channelling water through media filters containing pebbles to remove sediments before undergoing the reverse osmosis processing.
Two separate processing units, each capable of producing one million gallons daily, will combine to achieve the plant’s full capacity.
During the site visit, Peters explained how lessons learned from the construction of the Ffryes reverse osmosis facility has guided the construction work at Barnacle Point.
“For one, in the intake building, we have actually put some manholes at the top that will help to be able to remove parts of the pumps by using a crane more easily rather than going through the doors especially for this [site] most of the floor is below grade [beneath the surface of the ground],” Peters explained.
“Talking about the flow drains, as well, the pipes were too small; not any fault of APUA in any way, but it was by design, they [Seven Seas] use four-inch pipes so this time, we have actually upgraded to six-inch pipes throughout,” he said, adding that a lot of pre-planning have gone into the project.
Power infrastructure, meanwhile, remained a critical component of the new desalination operation.
Jason Peters, Acting APUA Water Business Unit Manager, detailed the electrical requirements during the tour, explaining that two transformers will handle production and distribution needs separately.
“We [are installing] two different transformers [which] more or less to convert the electricity from 11,000 volts to 460 volts because most of the pumps that are here are 460,” Jason Peters said.
He added that the site has its own a dedicated feeder which he expects that the 2 MVA transformer will allow the site to safely increase power usage from 1 MW to 1.5 MW (max capacity of 2 MW) while underground electrical connections are also being installed to protect against saltwater corrosion.
According to Jason Peters, plans are being developed to purchase generators for key RO plants, excluding the facility at Crabb’s, in order to operate the facilities in the event of a natural disaster—independently of the main APUA electrical grid.
Minister Nicholas said the completed plant will serve communities including Hodges Bay, Crosbies, Blue Waters, Soldiers’ Gut, Boons Point, and Cedar Grove.
Buckley’s site visit reveals tank bottom replacement 98 percent complete as project managers optimistic on end of July finish
Meanwhile, the restoration of Buckley’s reservoir tank has reached a major milestone with 98 percent completion of the tank bottom replacement.
Bryan Nicholas, Maintenance and Distribution Engineer at APUA who is currently overseeing the project, reported that the 660,000-gallon capacity facility should return to service by the end of July after being offline for five years due to severe corrosion at the tank base.
The restoration project, which is currently contracted to Ethos Steel Engineering, involve complete replacement of corroded materials and installation of cathodic concentric rings, backfilling, welding and painting of the tank to prevent future deterioration.
“There’s a small RO plant in the Pigeon Point area, but it only produced an average of about 230,00 to 250,000 gallons of water per day. It’s hardly adequate for all of the communities, in St Paul’s. Minister Melford Nicholas said at the site. “Once this facility comes on board, we’re hoping to improve that and we’re going to tie into the reservoir that has already been built at Patterson’s but has never been used… we will have sufficient water to be able to send over to St Paul’s.”
During the tour, the team said they were employing advanced magnetic sandblasting equipment to eliminate the need for manual scaffolding work, reducing both project time and costs.
Jose Mendoza and Jahdiel Avila from ETHOS Engineering emphasized the company’s commitment to delivering quality infrastructure.
“We are honoured and very grateful that we were chosen to deliver this service, and… we are committed to bringing top-notch technology [which] this is going to boost all the efforts that the APUA is doing in order to finally fix in a long-term manner the issues that Antigua and Barbuda are facing with the water,” Avila said.
As part of the restoration, the team will add a fill line from the top of the tank, allowing water to be stored during hurricanes or major equipment repairs at source facilities.
“We’re going to now add a fill line from the top. What that will allow us to do is in the event of emergencies, that is, hurricanes, or perhaps we have some significant services that we need to do to the source that fills the tank, we can then lock it in, hold the water in,” Bryan Nicholas detailed.
The gravity-fed system is expected to reduce pressure requirements and minimise stress on the transmission network, particularly along Buckley’s main road where re-piping work is planned.
Additional projects in the pipeline include the replacement of the aging Tango plant in Crabb’s to make 3.2-million-gallon Reverse Osmosis (RO) facility which the Minister revealed he will visit in a few weeks.
Minister Nicholas outlined the broader infrastructure vision during the tour, emphasizing the government hope to implement an automated SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) monitoring technology to assist APUA technicians to proactively manage the water system with real-time data and remote-control capabilities.
