This project will reduce the exposure of the public to raw wastewater, Commonwealth Utilities Corp. deputy director for water and wastewater Bruce Megarr said.
The project, which will cost $7 million, will also help protect the fragile environmental resources along the coast, including Saipan lagoon and its coral reef, which is considered as the lifeblood of the local tourism industry, Megarr said.
“CUC had had many problems operating the wastewater collection and treatment facilities on Saipan,” he said.
This resulted in administrative orders from the US. Environmental Agency Protection outlining CUC’s various Clean Water Act violations.
On March 11, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the NMI finalized the stipulated orders to ensure that CUC’s wastewater and drinking water system will be in compliance with the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.
Megarr said only one of the nine water pumps is operational while the 30-year-old asbestos-cement sewer lines in Garapan are already crumbling and collapsing.
This, he added, has already caused cave-ins on roads, blocking the sewer lines and backing wastewater up into customers homes and businesses.
The problem also resulted in groundwater and stormwater entering the wastewater collection system, which overloads the wastewater pumping stations during large storm water run-off events, he said.
“The damaged sewer pipes also allow some of the collected raw wastewater to seep into and even spill out onto the ground which is adjacent to popular tourist beaches and pristine coral reefs,” Megarr said.
He added that asbestos-cement is no longer used in the U.S. as material for wastewater collection pipes.
The sewer collection system in Garapan was installed in the late 1970s.
Megarr said after the Agingan plant was constructed in 1992, the wastewater collected from Garapan was rerouted south.
The six-mile stretch of Beach Road from Garapan south to Agingan Point is predominantly flat as the road follows the coastline south, he said.
Wastewater is collected in gravity sewer lines, “but there’s not enough elevation to gravity flow the sewer the entire six miles,” he added.
So, he said, CUC put up a series of lift stations to transport the wastewaster to the treatment plant, but the water pumps are now broken.
CUC wants to rehabilitate and replace 2,241 feet of gravity sewer main; 6,626 feet of sewer force main; and nine sewer lift stations along the wastewater collection system between Garapan and the Agingan Point wastewater treatment plants.
Megarr said CUC has submitted its application for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants.
It will take 20 months to finish the gravity sewer main rehabilitation, the installation of the new force main, and the repair of nine lift stations.
