Mt. Tapochao tapped to ease water shortage

A team from the US Geological Survey and the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation today begins drilling into new source of spring water in Mt. Tapochao in hopes to ease water shortages in central Saipan and provide steady supply to residents.

Funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deal with the drought in the Northern Marianas, the $1.2 million project is scheduled to be completed in eight months, but some wells may be on-line within the next few months.

Other water projects on Rota and Tinian will also be undertaken as part of the FEMA grants, according to Pamela Mathis, CUC’s chief information officer.

“Our hopes are high that the Mt. Tapochao project would supply adequate water for the Garapan, Navy Hill area,” she said. “It will take people to fix leaks and it will also take people to conserve water.”

The project, covering seven wells, is viewed as an alternative to a previous plan to build a water desalination plant on Saipan which has stalled in the past four years due to lack of funds and little support from residents and public officials.

Although the government-owned utility firm has yet to determine how much water will be pumped from the Tapochao wells, the new source will help solve perennial shortages in the central district, the most populous area on Saipan.

The drilling program could mean CUC may not need the desalination facility or it could postpone it for a while, according to Mathis.

“It could also mean that we still want to do desalination that, instead of three million gallons a day, we could do only one million and so we could save a lot of money,” she said.

The proposed facility was estimated to cost more than $100 million over the next 20 years as it would be constructed through the build-operate-transfer scheme — meaning CUC will have to purchase three million gallons of water a day from its contractor for $5 million each year.

Last March, utility officials agreed to hold off action on the plan to give way to the Tapochao project, while studying other technology that may cost cheaper than the desalination process or the reverse osmosis in which seawater is turned potable.

A new request for proposal on the project is expected to be issued within the next few weeks in search of other firms that could provide other types of technology at a more affordable price.

“That will be going on at the same time (with the drilling program). Hopefully, by the time that is finished, we know exactly the yield (of the new wells),” Mathis said.

The highest peak on the island, Tapochao is believed to be a rich source of fresh water. There are more than 130 water wells on Saipan and three natural water springs that produce 11 million of gallons per day.

A 20-million rain catchment facility at the airport also provides a major source of water on Saipan whose growing population has drained existing infrastructure in recent years.

The current drought whipped up by El Nino has also dried up wells, further aggravating the water problem besetting the island. Rota and Tinian have largely been spared from impact of the long dry spell because of the high quality of their water sources.