awesome article by Tacogirl on the water system....


Consolidated Water

While our tap water at the plant is completely potable, there is no guarantee on the state of the pipes running from Consolidated Water to where ever you are.

The Reverse Osmosis Plant owned and operated by Consolidated Water Belize Limited (CWBL) in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye is a relatively simple seawater reverse osmosis process. The plant is located about 2 miles south of town central San Pedro. Seawater is extracted from two shallow wells adjacent to the lagoon. Because the wells are shallow and uncased they are under the direct influence of the lagoon water. Natural and man-made changes in the lagoon water quality have a direct impact on the plant's operation.

The raw seawater is pumped through pre-filters to remove suspended solids 5 microns and larger in size, (a micron is one-millionth of a meter�really, really small). Many/most constituents of seawater, (organic and inorganic), are smaller than this and pass through the pre-filters. The filtered water is then pressurized by two pump systems: diesel driven pumps and high pressure booster pumps, (powered by the waste/brine water flow). The pressurized seawater (about 960 lbs/in.2) is forced through two separate Trains of RO vessels and the "plastic" membranes inside. The membranes have pores about .45 microns in size. These pores are smaller than most of the organic/inorganic constituents of seawater so most salts, minerals etc. are left behind on the brine side of the membranes.

Click here to read the rest of the excellent article and see more photos on Tacogirl's blog!


Consolidated Water Plant Tour
Many people are interested to know about the water in Belize and how our water plant works. Today I am giving you a followup to my previous post on that (see link below) as both Shirlee and Ann wanted to share their experiences from the Consolidated plant tour. If the technical side of our water system is an interest to you, I highly recommend you book yourself in for a Consolidated Water tour with Dee Dillon. You can reach him at [email protected], 226-3845, Mobile - 610-4860. I have had the pleasure of touring the plant on three separate occasions. It lasts for about an hour and takes you from start, (the wells from where the water is extracted) to finish (the storage tanks). Actually the tour starts in the office/control room which is chalk full of monitoring equipment.