Bruce Megarr, deputy director of CUC, said this “generic controller” machine will enable them to track and control different parameters important to water utility.
“It would allow us to measure, track and control different parameters that are important to a water utility. I have hopes we can set up the pilot up this year,” Megarr told the Variety in an e-mail.
“You know, we have to fulfill the requirements of the federal stipulated orders, Division of Environmental Quality’s sanitary survey, and meeting our day to day operational requirements,” he added.
CUC is seeing high salinity content in its water because there has not been enough rain since 2006.
The situation has caused some water wells on Saipan to dry up, prompting CUC to ration water on some parts of the island where water is really scarce.
Megarr said the salinity content of water in the CNMI is measured in micro-siemens of conductivity.
If the generic controller machine is secured, Megarr said they could take other measures to improve the water quality that CUC produces.
“We want to slave pump speed to salinity. This can be done using a variable frequency drive that would use the amount of salt water present in our wells as the control variable for pump speed. The relationship would be inversely proportional — more salinity would cause the well pump to slow and therefore limit salinity to a level of our choosing,” he said.
