Water Task Force installs last of 4,000 meters

The last of the initial 4,000 meters was installed Friday by the Water Task Force headed by Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente at the corner of Plumeria and Coconut Avenue in Garapan.

Benavente, along with the WTF team, also performed a pressurization check of one of the nearby fire hydrants to show that pressurization provides more water for users and will also improve fire protection.

The water meter installation project started in May this year with the initial 4,000 meters installed at several points north and south of San Jose, including the Northern Marianas College water reservoir, the reservoir on Isley Field going down to Chalan Piao, the Calhoun reservoir serving upper/lower Navy Hill, Chinatown, MIHA housing going down to the Maturana Hill, on to the Commonwealth Health Center and Beach Road in Garapan and the Puerto Rico reservoir going down to Middle Road and on to Garapan.

Don Smith, WTF program manager said, the contract for the meter installation was extended due to some changes on the project. “But the Water Task Force is reasonably satisfied with the progress made by the contractor considering the difficulty of locating service laterals in installing these meters.”

An additional 1,500 meters are expected to be installed beginning this month. The 1,500 water meters are part of an additional 8,500 new meters that the Water Task Force is purchasing to further meet its goal of installing water meters in every household and businesses on Saipan so consumers will pay for their actual water usage.

The Task Force expects to finish installing the additional 8,500 meters by August 2006. Complete metering of the entire island is expected to finish by early 2007.

Meanwhile, the Water Task Force announced that areas that have suffered poor water distribution in the past are now receiving a significant increase in their water hours. In many areas, water hours have increased from one-hour per day to nearly 24-hours a day.

Smith also reported that well-field optimization at Agag Well is almost complete and would provide a significant amount of additional good quality water to Garapan, Navy Hill and its surrounding areas.

Five more wells in As Matuis and Marpi areas will be on line hopefully by the end of this year.

“With Agag, As Matuis/Marpi and Obyan wells on line, the community should receive an additional 1.5 million gallons per day of water from these sources,” Smith added. (PR)