The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is now soliciting bids to replace the corroded San Vicente water storage tank with a pre-stressed concrete tank, similar to the one installed at the Northern Marianas College.<\/p>\n
CUC acting executive director William Gilmore said the 750,000-gallon water tank behind San Vicente Church is still operating but it\u2019s \u201crusted badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t trust it to handle with major storms,\u201d said Gilmore, adding that the existing tank is starting to spring leaks. \u201cWe\u2019re bidding it as we speak,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The San Vicente water tank is among the many U.S. Environmental Protection Agency projects intended to improve CUC\u2019s water distribution system on the island.<\/p>\n
EPA is funding three projects on Saipan, including the replacement of the San Vicente water tank, with an estimated total cost of $4.8 million, in order for CUC to increase the reliability of 24-hour water service in San Vicente, As Lito, Chinatown homestead, and other areas.<\/p>\n
EPA inspector John Tinger disclosed last year that the San Vicente storage tank project has a projected cost of $3.3 million. Tinger said the Chinatown homestead waterline replacement project has an estimated cost of $1.1 million, while the As Lito water main project has a cost of $1.4 million.<\/p>\n
EPA is funding two other CUC projects\u2014in Gualo Rai and Fina Sisu\u2014with an estimated cost of $2.73 million. Under the projects, old and leaking water lines were replaced to enable CUC to provide 24-hour water supply.<\/p>\n
Gilmore disclosed that they are also bidding on two of three other major water transmission projects.<\/p>\n
He said there will be a significant improvement in terms of water service and water pressure upon completion of these EPA-funded projects.<\/p>\n
Gilmore said they are going to replace a lot of old water lines with concrete pipes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be from smaller service to the larger service. Pressure should be better, supply should be better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gilmore said the projects would also help CUC reduce its non-revenue water loss problem because the targeted places have significant leaks.<\/p>\n
By installing new pipes, this will reduce CUC\u2019s leak issue dramatically, he added.<\/p>\n
CUC wants to reduce its non-revenue water loss to below 50%. At present, CUC\u2019s non-revenue water loss is at 65 percent.<\/p>\n
Gilmore said their leak detection group is now doing work up north of Saipan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is now soliciting bids to replace the corroded San Vicente water…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,428],"class_list":["post-304558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cuc","tag-san-vicente"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}