Final work today on old Capital Hill reservoir

A contractor will conduct the last installation of new pipelines today, Wednesday, in the ongoing rehabilitation of the one million-gallon Capital Hill reservoir that was built in the 1950s.

The target completion date for the Capital Hill Reservoir Rehabilitation Project is September 2008. The CNMI Water Task Force is administering the federally funded project at a cost of over $200,000.

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and the CNMI Water Task Force said that Maeda Pacific Corp.’s installation of new pipelines would cause a water outage today.

CUC water division manager Mariano Iglecias told Saipan Tribune that the water outage would affect residents and businesses in Chalan Galaide, Capital Hill, Wireless Ridge, Talafofo, Tapochau, Agag, and I Denni from 9am to 1pm.

Iglecias said the normal water hours supply in those areas is from 6am to 1pm. They are going to shut down the reservoir at 9am. As a result, water supply hours for those areas will only be from 6am to 9am. Normal water services will resume the following day, Thursday.

“Once the required installation work is completed, it would enable greater flow into the reservoir and improve water quantity and quality,” the manager said.

Iglecias said the installation of new pipelines is going to be an eight-hour job.

“What we are doing is we are improving the water lines inside the reservoir so that we can control and get better water quality,” he said.

The manager said the reservoir was built in the 1950s so it is better to conduct extensive renovations on it to improve the water service.

He said the original contract was worth $170,000 but, with all the additional work, it is now reaching a little over $200,000.

Majority of the funds came from the Housing Urban Development Block Grant. The Department of the Interior co-funded the project.

Iglecias said the installation of new pipelines is part of a sequence of work and that in fact it is already the third announcement for water outages in those areas.

“Initially, what we did to lessen the impact on the customers was to work on replacing the valves, [then] adding in new pipes. So this is the last of the new piping installation work,” he said.

He said, though, that the bulk of the work actually involves cleaning and rehabilitating the tank and that is yet to come.

He said the project’s biggest challenge is sealing the tank and bringing it to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards.

The CNMI Task Force and CUC handed the contractor the notice to proceed with the project in April 2008.