City to get
water-filter plant

The builder will pay the $140 million cost
in return for rights to sell the treated water

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

A major water-treatment company said it has agreed to build a plant for the City and County of Honolulu at no cost to the city, to produce up to 12 million gallons a day of clean water from the output of the city's Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment Plant.

United States Filter Corp. said it will design and build the plant and, with other services it provides as part of the contract, the deal will be worth $140 million.

In return for establishing the plant, the company will be able to take wastewater from the city treatment plant, purify it to the extent that it can be safely used in boilers and other industrial equipment or for irrigation, and sell it, officials said.

It will take 13 million gallons a day of secondary effluent from the treatment plant and turn out 12 million gallons a day of two grades of processed water -- high-purity water for power and petroleum-refining companies at nearby Campbell Industrial Park and irrigation water for the Ewa area.

U.S. Filter, based in Palm Desert, Calif., called the arrangement a 20-year, public-private partnership.

Earlier this year the city said it would lease the space, next to the wastewater treatment plant, to U.S. Filter for $1 a year.

Assuming a final contract is signed next month as planned, the company said it will commence construction in March and complete the plant early in 1999.

"The partnership eliminates the need for our community to spend millions of dollars to build treatment facilities needed to meet a federal consent decree," Mayor Jeremy Harris said in a statement issued by U.S. Filter.

"Secondly, it enables us to preserve limited potable water resources through the stringent treatment and reuse of wastewater," Harris said.

The consent decree requires 5 million gallons a day of city wastewater to go to "beneficial reuse" by July 1999 and 10 million gallons a day by July 2001.

U.S. Filter said that in addition to the "reclamation plant," it also will build a 15-mile pipeline.

The company said it will use the latest microfiltration processes to remove particles and bacteria from the wastewater before further processing it to meet the users' specifications.