Bahamian Water Resources, the Environment & Ways the World Could End

by Larry Smith

"A can of soda costs more than 50 gallons of fresh water." -- Godfrey Sherman, general manager of the Water & Sewerage Corporation

James Altucher is an investor who writes books with titles like Super Cash. And for all you alarmists out there, his latest project is about ways the world could end.

"I was thinking about this during dinner with a risk manager of a multi-billion dollar fund of funds," Altucher explained recently in the Financial Times. "All this guy does all day is worry. Pandemic this, dollar collapse that, terrorism, nuclear accident, etc etc. Imagine getting paid to worry?"

With that goal in mind, Altucher worked up a list of 30 scenarios on how the world can end. The options range from an asteroid strike to a financial collapse to a flu pandemic to running out of clean water. But that last scenario, he says, is the only one that is "very likely" to happen within the next 30 years.

"Only 0.001 per cent of the world’s water is drinkable. The supply is never going to change, but the demand is rocketing thanks to the modernisation of the developing world. More than half of all hospital stays in the world are due to water-related diseases."

A quick Internet search turns up tons of information on the world's growing water crisis - in terms of both availability and sanitation. As BBC reporter Alex Kirby warned: "Cut it how you will, the picture that emerges from today's data and tomorrow's forecasts is so complex and appalling it can leave you feeling powerless."

Experts say that more and more people are living in cities and raising the demand for food and water just as climate change is beginning to squeeze supply. So I thought that with development issues currently high on our radar, it would be useful to take a look at the water situation in the Bahamas.

Our little chain of islands has long suffered from a scarcity of fresh water, particularly in the south - that's why granny admonished us to always let the yellow mellow and only flush the brown down (since flushing accounts for 40 per cent of water use in our homes).

But now we take things for granted. Bahamians don't realise that fresh water is so scarce we spend a fortune to supply it. At a College of the Bahamas panel discussion on this subject last week, General Manager Godfrey Sherman said the Water & Sewerage Corporation must invest $250 million every five years for the foreseeable future.

That's big bucks for a small country. And as you may know, the WSC is in the same position as most other government entities - dead broke. Mr Sherman admitted he was running a deficit of $10-20 million a year.

We get our fresh water from rain, which percolates through the limestone rock to accumulate on top of salt water a few feet underground. But over-pumping to meet greater demand causes the two to mix, and rising sea levels due to climate change can also be expected to raise salinity levels, according to Philip Weech, a hydrologist who is now chairman of the BEST Commission.

Meanwhile, Dr Richard Cant, a consultant who has worked with the WSC since 1972, outlined a plethora of threats to our groundwater reserves, pointing out that wellfields on both Andros and Grand Bahama have been inundated by storm surges in recent years. Repairs to water systems damaged by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 cost over $2 million, and Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne caused similar damage in 2004.

Getting rid of garbage has always been a big problem on small islands, and since we have no drainage to the sea, everything dumped on or into the ground finds its way to the water table, including carcinogenic sewerage from your neighbour's poorly built septic tank. And groundwater pollution is very difficult and costly to clean up.

New Providence – where most of our homes and hotel rooms are located - is critically short of groundwater. We use about 11 million gallons a day, but the island's wellfields have been unable to meet the demand since the mid 1970s, when Nassau underwent strict rationing and the WSC began barging water from North Andros.

Dr Cant says rising sea levels over the next several decades will create more brackish wetlands on major islands, with Andros losing up to half of its fresh water resources. "We already have a water deficit and more people and development means more demand. So we must plan now to survive."

Globally, demand for water has tripled over the past half century, according to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, and water tables are falling in countries that contain more than half the world's people, including the big three grain producers - China, India and the United States.

"Seventy per cent of all water use is for irrigation, compared with 20 per cent used by industry and 10 per cent for residential purposes. While most people recognise that the world is facing a future of water shortages, not everyone has connected the dots to see that this also means a future of food shortages," Mr Brown said.

"Lakes are disappearing on every continent and for the same reasons: excessive diversion of water from rivers and over-pumping of aquifers. What is needed now is a new way of thinking about water use..As water becomes scarce it needs to be priced accordingly."

This brings us back to Mr Sherman's remarks at the panel discussion that water prices in the Bahamas are unrealistic - meaning too low.

Currently, the WSC pumps less than half a million gallons a day from its New Providence wellfields (compared to about 2.2 million when they were in regular use) and still barges about 2.5 million gallons a day from Andros. The balance of 8 million gallons is purchased by the WSC from privately operated reverse osmosis plants.

One reason for the drop in wellfield production is the state of the infrastructure. The cost to renovate wells, access roads, pipework, electrical supply and pumping facilities is significant, and that does not take account of the amount of undeveloped land that must be set aside to sustain production.

With land at a premium today, activities such as rock mining and canal cutting can have a dramatic impact on water reserves. The best example of this is the Grand Lucayan Waterway, which developers cut across Grand Bahama years ago, destroying a 40-foot fresh water lens in the process.

A more recent example is on Rum Cay, where research indicates that marina dredging at Cotton Field Point breached that island's fresh water lens. And we are all aware that the Albany developers plan to cut through the coast near Adelaide for a marina, which will lead to beach erosion and could also damage the water lens.

On top of this, there is a consensus among water experts that most Bahamian islands do not have enough groundwater reserves to meet anticipated growth. This means that even large islands like Abaco and Grand Bahama will eventually have to develop alternate sources of supply that are more sustainable.

The Andros tankering system was meant to be a short-term fix for Nassau and will be phased out over the next two years. In any case, the quality of the water it supplies is variable, as parts of the wellfield are still saline from the surge created by Hurricane Frances four years ago. Indeed, there are stories of grunts being found more than a mile inland after the storm.

So the upshot is that we are coming to rely more and more on desalting sea water, a process that is set to become one of the world's biggest industries. There are about 7,000 plants operating now, most in the Middle East and the Caribbean (i9ncluding the Bahamas). Desalination can be achieved in several ways, but reverse osmosis (which passes water at high pressure through special filters) is the method used here.

And luckily we have vast volumes of clean seawater readily available, while waste brines can safely be disposed of in the same way that we get rid of our sewerage and storm water - by flushing them down deep injection wells.

But RO plants do require large amounts of energy, so the cost of fuel is a challenge these days. The WSC currently spends about $2.6 million a year on energy, which only reinforces the urgency of cutting our reliance on oil as soon as possible.

According to Dr Cant, the solution to our long-term water supply needs is to combine desalting technology with alternate energy sources like solar, wind and wave power, ocean thermal energy conversion, and waste to energy processes.

A good example of the possibilities is Current Cut, where a tidal current of 4 to 6 knots could easily power turbines to run an RO plant for North Eleutthera. And the production of fresh water in addition to energy is one of the reasons OTEC technology holds such promise for countries like the Bahamas.

OTEC produces power by using the temperature difference between deep and shallow ocean waters. In Nassau, warm surface sea water would be pumped into a low pressure chamber where it would vapourise. The steam would drive turbines to generate electricity, and then be condensed as fresh water by exposure to cold sea water pumped up from the Tongue of the Ocean.

Unfortunately, the WSC's growing disinterest in its wellfields is a big concern for environmentalists, who want to conserve our natural resources. "Our pine forests in the north and broadleaf forests in the south are very important for rainfall," Bahamas National Trust director Eric Carey told the COB panel discussion. "Even if we rely on reverse osmosis we still need to protect our groundwater reserves and coastal wetlands."

And Eleanor Phillips of The Nature Conservancy revealed that local environmentalists are working on a master plan that seeks to give a snapshot of where we stand in terms of biodiversity and natural resource conservation.

"Poor management has led to the contamination and destruction of our fresh water resources," she told the seminar. "Scientists now recognise that you cannot manage natural resources in isolation. We must have integrated development planning that takes account of environmental impacts."

The United Nations biodiversity treaty requires the Bahamas to protect a minimum of 10 per cent of its land and sea ecosystems - including coral reefs, wetlands, beaches, forests and groundwater reserves. But according to Ms Phillips, most targets do not currently meet this standard, and many receive no protection at all - including our fresh water reserves.

"Our analysis recommends protection of locally important fresh water resources, and we encourage the WSC to protect their wellfields from development so they can provide a backup strategy for fresh water supply."

The world faces increasing competition for scarce resources as population expands from six billion today to 8.9 billion by 2050 and the Bahamas is certainly not immune from development pressures. Planning ways to secure a sufficient supply of clean, fresh water while conserving our forests is another example of how we have to adjust to changing conditions.

Comments

[Willie Lowman]

Larry, Great article. Water is becoming a scarce commodity everywhere in the world and we will have to pay the price. Even those previously pristine areas of the world where you could drink straight out of lakes and streams are disappearing with all the pollution we have produced. Life as we know it will die without potable water. One untried solution is to proactively and quickly mutate all life forms on earth, including humans, to adapt to consuming polluted water. The sciences that brought us plastics, radioactivity and disposable diapers will save our bacon. Hooray for science.

[Nick Higgs]

We can take a leaf out of Bermuda's book (scroll down http://www.bermuda-online.org/architecture.htm). By law 80% of water that falls on a roof in Bermuda must be collected in tanks. Water is strictly regulated although they also rely mainly on freshwater lenses. I remember growing up in the family islands without piped water and only living off of rainwater that we collected.

[larry smith]

Yes, I left out a discussion on rainwater catchment because the article was already too long and experts say it is no real solution.

Back in the day, we used a lot less water and had no option, so rainwater tanks were a big help.

They can still be useful today (for flushing purposes), but the high cost of storage and the fact that the water is not considered potable (because of toxic roofing materials) make them ineffective as a solution for current and future water consumption.

[Sam Duncombe]

And yet we are about to allow Albany to put a golf course on top of the islands largest water table. THeir marina also poses a threat to the watertable. Are we all just sticking out heads in the sand while we let developers do what they want with our resources? What a disgrace!

[Sakina]

I am from the US and of course their is a global problem with water and water politics. The problem is local apathy. Demonstrations need to be organized locally and globally for our survival. We need more than an occassional Earth Day movement and engage our local representatives.

[adam bronson]

My company has been lightly examining the Bahamas as we go forwards to establishing our first manufacturing facility for small to mid scale desalination units. I agree that rainwater isn't the answer. The sea is.

The problem with many countries, including the Bahamas, is that the population is scattered and there are many islands to service. Just the distribution system for a plant is often cost prohibitive enough to eliminate thoughts of a small RO plant.

The solution is many small units, either one per household, or one per group of homes, with the cost borne by the homeowener, and perhaps subsidized by the country. By becoming fully reliant on the ocean, the municipal systems need no t expand, and could eventually take a secondary place in the priorities of water policy.

We have a technology which is maintenance free. It is remarkably simple, energy efficient, and compact, and does not exhibit any membrane fouling whatsoever. Units have been in tropical operation for four years, and no breakdowns or downtime. In fact contrary to all other RO systems invented, flux doesn't dimish year on year (designed to make 10 or 20 m3 per year, it does it year after year).

If someone reading this has a dialogue with the water authority of business arm of the government, we'd be intersted in a chat. Thanks.

adam

[wpms model un club]

what do you guys do about the water shortage?

[wpms model un club]

Pipeline Proposal Aims To Fix Nassau Water Shortage
Hydro Bahamas is proposing an initial contract with the Water & Sewerage Corp. for a guaranteed minimum of 10 million gallons of fresh water per day to New Providence.

A Bahamian company is awaiting final Cabinet approval on a multi-million dollar pipeline project that could solve New Providence's increasing water problems by transporting fresh water from Andros to this island at a price that it believes will be almost 23 per cent cheaper than what the Water & Sewerage Corporation presently pays or could be delivered by a reverse osmosis plant.

Documents seen by The Tribune show that Hydro Bahamas plans to develop a new 26 million gallon wellfield in Central Andros and transport the extracted fresh water to New Providence via a deep sea pipeline, tapping into natural resources which, according to the Water & Sewerage Corporation's own research, can supply 210 million gallons of fresh water per day from north and central Andros alone.

Hydro Bahamas is proposing an initial contract with the Water & Sewerage Corporation that would see it supply a guaranteed minimum of 10 million gallons of fresh water per day to New Providence, with built-in redundancy capacity to extract a further five million gallons.

The company could eventually expand its fresh water extraction and supply business to 30-40 million gallons per day, which sources say would cover New Providence's water needs for at least "the next 50-100 years".

According to the Water & Sewerage Corporation, New Providence is projected to need 13 million gallons of water per day by 2005, yet currently only received 8.5 to nine million gallons per day. Some 4.5-5 million gallons are shipped in by two barges from north Andros, with the remainder coming from the existing Waterfields reverse osmosis plant and existing wellfields on this island.

The Corporation has forecast that by 2013, New Providence is likely to need 16 million gallons per day, almost double what it needed in 2000.

Some sources believe the real demand in 2013 could be closer to 18 million gallons of water per day.

According to the Hydro Bahamas plan obtained by The Tribune, its pipeline plan could provide a long-term solution to New Providence's water shortage problems. However, the company is understood to consider that its plans are not viable - it needs to supply a minimum of 10 million gallons per day - if the Water & Sewerage Corporation presses ahead with plans for the construction of a $20 million reverse osmosis plant at Blue Hills.

The tenders for a plant capable of producing 5 million gallons per day have already gone out, and Consolidated Water - the Cayman Islands-based company that already owns the Waterfields plant and is understood to be the front-runner for the Blue Hills contract. The Blue Hills plant could eventually be expanded to a six million gallon per day capacity.

In its recent fourth quarter results announcement, Consolidated Water said it was the lowest bidder on a 20-year contract to supply and operate a 6 to 7.2 million US gallon plant that would provide bulk water supplies to Nassau and was awaiting evaluation of its offer by the Water & Sewerage Corporation.

However, Hydro Bahamas is understood to believe that any move towards reverse osmosis does not make sense for either economic or environmental reasons, a position that appears to be backed by experts. The company believes water produced by reverse osmosis will be more expensive than the fresh water it extracts.

In a research note, Donald McCorquodale, a professor of oceanography, said: "If you have proven natural resources of fresh water in your country, I would strongly recommend that you explore this option first."

Doing so would make the Bahamas more independent and leave it less vulnerable to fluctuating oil prices.

He also warned that to produce one gallon of fresh water via reverse osmosis, at least one gallon of "salt brine" was created, meaning this had to be disposed of. Professor McCorquodale said this "could represent an environmental hazard and has therefore to be blended at 70:1 before it can be returned to the ocean".

Although desalination plants such as the one the Water & Sewerage Corporation had put out to tender had been shown to deliver good quality water, the plants were heavily energy dependent, leaving them vulnerable to increases in inputs such as oil and energy costs.

In addition, the tender document sent out to bidders by the Water & Sewerage Corporation appears to leave the Corporation responsible for picking up the winning bidder's electricity costs and diesel fuel costs whenever there is a BEC power cut.

The tender document, a copy of which has been seen by The Tribune, said that provided the successful bidder met the agreed amount of water delivered and the "KVA Maximum Demand" did not exceed guarantees made at the time of the bid, "the [Water & Sewerage] Corporation shall incur the actual net billed costs of electrical power (Kilowatt Hours and KVA Maximum Demand per annum) consumed during the Desalinated Water Delivery Period)".

The Tender added: "The Corporation shall pay all invoices presented by BEC for the electricity and maximum demand required to operate the plant during the Desalinated Water Delivery Period."

On a power cut, a Tender clause said: "In the event of BEC power supply failure or excursion, diesel fuel used by the standby diesel generator for the production of electricity for desalinated water production shall be paid by the [successful bidder] to the fuel oil supplier and the [Water & Sewerage] Corporation will reimburse the [bidder]......"

Effectively, the tender means that the Bahamian taxpayer, through the Water & Sewerage Corporation, could end up underwriting the business plan and costs of a company such as Consolidated Water, which is listed on the US-based Nasdaq stock exchange.

The tender also appears not to address how the successful bidder will dispose of any "brine" that is produced.

The Hydro Bahamas project, which has a projected overall cost of $124.4 million, will involve no capital investment or construction risk on the Government's part. Hydro Bahamas would only charge the Water & Sewerage Corporation once fresh water started to flow, with the price based on a throughput fee.

For the minimum 10 million gallon per day amount, Hydro Bahamas plans to charge $4.85 per 1,000 gallons, which is below the $6.30 per 1,000 gallons that the Water & Sewerage Corporation currently pays. If the Corporation uses more than the minimum amount, the water becomes cheaper the more it purchases, with the price above the minimum coming down to $2.85 per 1,000 gallons. Prices will be tied to the US consumer price index.

According to the documents obtained by The Tribune, Hydro Bahamas proposes to complete an Environmental Impact Assessment, feasibility study and all engineering for the first phase of the project within four months of having its Heads of Agreement approved by the Government.

In the first Phase of its project, the company to develop the Central Andros wellfield and install transmission lines between the wellfield to Coakley Town. A seven million gallon storage tank would also be built in Coakley Town. All water supplied by the company will be to the highest World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.

To provide redundancy capacity for its Androsia pipeline, Hydro Bahamas will also reassure the Government by providing for alternative tanker shipment of its freshwater supplies, constructing an offshore loading platform and two million gallon tank off Andros and an offloading facility in New Providence at Arawak Cay.

Transmission water mains would then be installed to take the delivered fresh water from Arawak Cay to pumping stations at Blue Hills and Winton. The company estimates this would be all completed within 11 months of the feasibility studies being completed.

The second phase will involve the laying of the 21-mile long Androsia pipeline between Coakley Town and Clifton Pier, which Hydro Bahamas estimates will take 24 months to complete once new feasibility studies have been done. These feasibility studies will take 12 months from the date the first phase is finished. The pipeline will be laid at a depth of up to 6,500 feet, using technology that has already helped lay deepwater pipelines at 10,000 feet in areas such as the Gulf of Mexico.

The Tribune understands that Hydro Bahamas has proposed penalties against itself if it fails to deliver, such as a $15,000 per day fine for every day it runs over the completion schedule. It has also propose that the penalty levied if it fails to deliver the stipulated amount of water be double the throughput fee it would charge the Water & Sewerage Corporation.

Hydro Bahamas is understood to be confident that the pipeline will pose no ecological threat to underwater life, while the offshore loading facility will not harm any reefs. Its business plan adds that wellfields, such as the one it proposes in central Andros, have had no negative impact on ecosystems, given that one has been located within four miles from the Lucayan National Park for the last 40 years.

[larry smith]

This project was vetoed long ago on technical and financial grounds. The Tribune article you posted above dates from 2004 and the claims it makes are based on hype from the investment backer - Hannes Babak.

HydroBahamas wanted a 99-lease on a vast area of central Andros - much of which is already part of our national park system. Development of the necessary well fields would require cutting miles of new roads and trenches as well as building power stations and other facilities in the wilderness.

The government already has troiuble pumping 5 million gallons a day from its existing Andros wellfield. HydroBahamas wanted to pump 15 mgd, which would have been a major technical achievement. And that does not even tough the engineering difficulties of running pipeline across the Tongue of the Ocean.

We came down on the side of RO - a tried and true technology that is easily scaleable.