THE Northern Guam Lens Aquifer is our sole source of drinking water. In most of northern Guam, there are no sewer pipes. When a home is built, normally it is the homeowner’s responsibility to connect the home to the sewer pipe in the street. Locally that costs about $5,000. Worse, the cost to install the sewer pipes is about $1 million/mile and there are about 400 miles of streets in northern Guam. Do the math.
Presently, the Guam EPA signs off on new homes with a reprieve for hooking up to the sewer pipes because there are none. Instead, leach fields and septic systems are allowed. Even worse, the federal EPA and GEPA approve the installation of injection wells and ponding basins to get rid of street runoff.
All of these sources drain directly into our drinking water aquifer. Sooner or later, our aquifer will start to smell like sewage unless we can convince the federal and local EPA to stop approving injection wells and ponding basins AND we connect sewerage to ALL buildings in northern Guam.
The alternative, when the aquifer does burp, is a desalination plant. Desalination costs $1-2 for 250 gallons (an average person on Guam uses 3,750 gallons/month, which is $15-$30 per month per person).
This does not include the cost of building the desalination plant, which is about $40-50 million for 25 million gallons per day (MGD) using brackish water and $100 million for seawater (we use ~50 MGD on Guam). Do the math...$400 million for pipes plus $50 -100 million for a 25 MGD plant (times two plants since we use 50 MGD)…only about a half a billion dollars to pay for a new water supply and a water bill four-five times what we pay now.

ERNIE MATSON
Professor of Oceanography
University of Guam
Talofofo, Guam