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By NEIL JOHNSON
The Tampa Tribune
CLEARWATER - The region’s water supplier on Monday agreed to settle a lawsuit over the troubled desalination plant for $7.9 million that will go toward the $48 million cost to repair the plant.
Board members of Tampa Bay Water agreed to the settlement of the suit filed against the manufacturers of the membranes that remove salt from seawater, engineers and companies that provided performance bonds on the plant.
Tampa Bay Water originally sought $15 million in performance bonds from Hydranautics, Inc., the membrane manufacturer, their insurance companies, Fidelity and Deposit Co. of Maryland and Zurich American Insurance, plus Delaware Engineering and King Engineering Associates.
The settlement ends Tampa Bay Water’s lawsuit with no admission of fault or liability by any party.
The $110 million plant in Apollo Beach opened in 2003 but failed a series of acceptance tests. It was closed in June 2005 for repairs.
Those repairs may be nearing completion. The project manager for the company making the repairs on Monday said the plant may be ready to begin a four-week test to determine if it operates properly. The plant is now sending about 16 million gallons a day to water customers in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco.
Though the plant was able to convert sea water to drinking water, it never operated as designed. The costly, delicate membranes fouled too quickly, shortening their life-span and driving up operating costs.
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Posted by Joseph M. Abad, Tampa on 04/29 at 03:58 PM
The Spanish Company who is the prime contractor for the Desal plant was keeping the public informed on the repairing being performed; by letters printed in the Tampa Trib. I know they have entered the test phase. When can we expect to read a status report on their testing results. Is it going well? Just wondering?