After a two-year hiatus, the Bristol County Water Authority's water treatment plant should be back to serving the towns of Barrington, Bristol, and Warren by January.
The Child Street plant renovation, which began in June 2002, is near completion, according to BCWA Executive Director Pasquale DeLise. It is expected to be back on line at the end of November, and will undergo several weeks of disinfection before resuming water supply in the area.
"We're going to have about four to six weeks where we're going to run the plant in a closed loop, so that we can disinfect the plant and train the operators for the new standards," DeLise said.
The BCWA undertook the $1.5-million renovation project -- the plant's first major renovation since it was built in 1908 -- to bring the plant up to Environmental Protection Agency standards for safe drinking water. The EPA set new regulations in 2001, and the plant would not have met the standards in its previous state.
The renovation, which includes the installation of new pipes, storage tanks, pumps and filters, was funded through grants from the Rhode Island Water Resources Board. The BCWA initially estimated that the work would be finished by spring 2003, but the work has been beset by several delays.
The plant went off line in December 2001, but the project was delayed when the cost, originally estimated at $749,000, jumped to $1.2 million. The water resources board subsequently held back on paying an extra $425,000 until April 2002, further interrupting the process.
After the work by Hart Engineering Corp., of Smithfield, began, this year's harsh winter caused additional delays. Construction was halted during January and most of February, and did not officially resume until March.
Unanticipated costs have also arisen during the process, adding another $300,000 to the repair budget. At the past two board of directors meetings, the board has approved three additional work items at a total cost of $31,347.
DeLise compared the process to fixing an old car.
"We've covered all the big things, but little things keep coming up," he said.
Most of the new equipment has to be constructed specifically to fit in the plant, which has added to the amount of time that the repairs take, DeLise said.
But he said he was "very satisfied" with the work so far.
The authority has been paying the Providence Water Supply Board for Bristol County's water since the plant went off line, at a rate of $1,017 per million gallons.
Under the regular water supply system, Providence supplies one-third of the water; the rest comes from the authority's reservoirs in Massachusetts.
The authority had faced criticism and concern about the quality of the water it provided over the past few years, as elevated levels of trihalomethanes -- including chloroform -- were found in the drinking water, following a brief breakdown in the plant's generator in 2000.
While DeLise said that the quality should improve following the renovations, he said that the BCWA's water has never slipped below federal standards.
"When we talk about water quality, you must limit the water quality within the limitation of the EPA standards," he said. "When you talk about water quality as a personal preference, that doesn't play a role.
"There's 50,000 people in this [area], and none of them might agree on what a good glass of water is."
To contact Jessica Ullian, phone 253-1200 or e-mail JUllian(at)projo.com.
