Location: Governors Harbour, Grand Cayman
Capacity: Original facility 1.2 million US gallons per day (4,500 m3 per day)
Additional facility 1.0 million US gallons per day (3,800 m3 per day)
Commissioned: 1990
The Company’s first desalination equipment was located near this site, which originally housed a wastewater treatment plant. Mechanical vapor compression distillation units were installed on this site starting in 1979. Seawater for these units came from an open sea intake located just off of Seven Mile Beach and the water produced was used to service some of the first tourist properties located along Seven Mile Beach.
Grand Cayman has very limited low salinity groundwater resources and prior to the Company’s introduction of desalination to the island, homes, businesses and hotels relied primarily on rainwater collected in cisterns. The introduction of desalination by the Company was instrumental in assisting in the island’s property development growth and prosperity over the years.
In 1990, the Company commissioned its first seawater reverse osmosis plant and the old vapor compression units were decommissioned and taken out of service over the next several years. The initial capacity of the reverse osmosis plant was 600,000 US gallons per day.
Over the years, the equipment has been expanded on several occasions such that the original facility now produces over 1.2 million US gallons per day of potable water. An additional adjacent facility was commissioned in 2009 with a capacity of 1.0 million US gallons per day, bringing the total supply of potable water from the site to 2.2 million US gallons per day.
In addition to the desalination equipment, this site also includes 3.0 million US gallons of potable water storage, disinfection equipment and distribution equipment. This facility is one of three located in the Company’s distribution service area for Grand Cayman. The drinking water produced by these facilities is distributed via the Company’s pipelines to homes, businesses, hotels and tourist accommodations in the area, under an exclusive long-term license with the Cayman Islands Government to produce, distribute and sell potable water.
