Desalination and water reclamation

As in many arid countries and islands suffering from water stress, potable water on Sint Eustatius (Dutch Antilles) is derived mainly from rainwater which is stored in cisterns. This method of water provision can cause public health and hygiene problems. Furthermore, water shortages arise in times of drought.

Since the government of Sint Eustatius wishes to bring to an end its dependency on purchasing drinking water from private companies, a publicly owned drinking water production and distribution system involving desalination of sea water has been designed, commissioned and built. In co-operation with our partner, Witteveen+Bos handled the preparations for the project by providing functional specifications and tender documents for the implementation and maintenance of a complete desalination reverse osmosis (RO) drinking water production installation and storage and distribution system. We acted as consultants on the build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) contract and supervised the tendering process.

Our involvement in sea water desalination projects for drinking water production ranges from master planning, feasibility studies and design to preparation of tender documents and commissioning in many arid countries all over the world, including Mauritania and Mali. Desalination is part of our core competence in process design and engineering, while most of our wastewater reclamation projects include desalination, often RO based.