The "Lady of Tampa Bay"

Tampa Bay is the biggest desalination plant in the United States. ACCIONA Agua has redesigned and rebuilt the facility and now operates it jointly with partner American Water.

The region of Tampa Bay in Florida (USA) has in the past mainly depended upon underground aquifers for its drinking water needs. Population growth in the area in the 1990s was greater than the rate of development of new drinking water sources. The demand for water, combined with drought and continued exploitation, put existing wells at risk. A plan was drawn up in 1998 to develop alternative sources of drinking water which included the building of a desalination plant.

ACCIONA Agua was not contracted in the initial design and construction phase of the plant. However, although the original plant produced some water, the design was deficient and filters clogged up too quickly and obstructed the system. Tampa Bay Water issued another call for tender for the redesign and reconstruction of the plant and, this time, ACCIONA Agua and its partner American Water won the contract and started to develop a solution to put right the defects at what is now the biggest desalina-tion plant in the United States.

The solution

After three years of work correct-ing the processes and systems, and restarting the plant, ACCIONA Agua and American Water finalized the project. The plant was designed to supply up to 108,831m3 a day of drinking water and have an estimated useful life of 30 to 50 years.

Tampa Bay Water has now fulfilled its mandate to reduce the consumption of underground water and secure the supply of quality drinking water to its customers with full guarantees.

Post-treatment improvements

Water leaving the osmosis process contains no minerals. To add them, while fulfilling quality requirements for supply, new equipment for chlorine dioxide and calcium hydroxide dosage was installed.