Seawater Desalination Coming to Teshie

Charlie writes:

A few weeks ago on my usual weekend bicycle ride, I tried to find the Ramada Inn that is east of Accra on Coco Beach. Was unable to on bicycle, but later Mary Kay and I drove over, and spent a holiday afternoon there. But the topic of this post is the new water project that I discovered. I've not heard anything of it in the local media.

Today, I bicycled back over, and met with Carlos, one of the engineers from Abengoa Water, a Spanish firm that is heading up a desalination project in Teshie, an eastern suburb of Accra, the nation's capital. Carlos was pacing the property, with a clipboard on which he was counting the trucks as they went in and out of the compound. As he explained to me, the site had been used as an unofficial landfill, so the first step is to build a wall, install concertina wire and gates, and provide manned security to discourage the addition of any more trash to the property. They had been given assurances that the place they were hauling truckloads of black sand in Tema, further east, had been declared a legitimate landfill, but hadn't seen official documents of that claim yet.

When I asked how much water this plant was to be providing to this part of Accra, the answer was "Just read it off the sign, isn't it out there?" We walked outside the gate and as you can see in the photo, there was no mention of the size or date. Carlos then admitted that the plant was designed to produce 60,000 cubic meters of potable water per day, and that if everything goes well, it should begin operating in about two years. As a point of comparison, I found a report suggesting that in 2008, GWCL had contracted for a 20,000 cubic meters per day plant in Teshie, with a 25-year BOO plan with Aqualyng Ghana Limited, which I suppose has lapsed. That was projected to supply enough water for just 4% of metro Accra, which would be 1 or 2% by 2030. Sounds like this plant is 3 times that. Abengoa claims to have built plants in Spain, Algeria, India, and China with a combined capacity of 875,000 cubic meters per day, so this is a modest sized one.

He and I compared traffic stories. Carlos decided to settle in Osu, where he could get about without needing an auto, and could find good food and nightlife. His firm supplied him a driver and auto, and he can make it from home to work in 45-60 minutes. The beach road widening is nearly finished, just a few hundred yards of road where the dual-carriage merges onto one side just east of the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Center. Both our commutes are reverse the normal direction, although mine is closer to 90 minutes.

Apparently the plan is to submerge a large pipe under the beach there, and withdraw seawater. Then it will be forced through membranes at high pressures to separate the salt. He didn't say what other processes would be used, but I would imagine that chlorination or UV disinfection might be required, since the city of Accra discharges only partially treated wastewater into the ocean at a point that Google Earth computes at 17.12 km away. [Google Earth kml file here].

The civil work was being done by the same outfit that had constructed the Ashesi campus in Berekuso, so their foreman recognized my t-shirt. They are planning to finish securing the perimeter in the next few weeks.

With the unreliability of electricity in the area, I'm not sure how practical a desal plant will be, but perhaps they will build a large diesel powerplant to carry them over power cuts. That would be very expensive, though.

Saw the following advert on my way home on a tavern wall. Ghanaians are often surprised that I would call myself "Charlie" for this reason, since it is kind of like "Bud" or "Buster" in the USA.

Exo 15:23-27 GNB

Then they came to a place called Marah, but the water there was so bitter that they could not drink it. That is why it was named Marah. The people complained to Moses and asked, "What are we going to drink?" Moses prayed earnestly to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood [moringa?], which he threw into the water; and the water became fit to drink. There the LORD gave them laws to live by, and there he also tested them. He said, "If you will obey me completely by doing what I consider right and by keeping my commands, I will not punish you with any of the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians. I am the LORD, the one who heals you." Next they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees; there they camped by the water.