Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant Begins Operations
Refurbished Plant at Apollo Beach Now Delivering Drinking Water Daily

Gibsonton , FL - Residents in the Tampa Bay region are again enjoying desalinated seawater as part of their drinking water supply. The refurbished Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant has begun operating and has delivered more than 20 million gallons directly into the drinking water system since April 6, 2007. The delivery of water follows final plant clearance by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to operate and deliver water directly into the regional drinking water system.

The plant is expected to continue delivering water throughout the dry season while American Water-Pridesa (AWP), the company remediating the plant, completes start-up and commissioning of the facility.  Since mid-March, the plant produced 216.8 million gallons of desalinated water to Tampa Bay Water's raw surface water system saving both groundwater and reservoir storage.

“While the region has enough water from other sources to carry us through the dry season, desalinated seawater is helping sustain our freshwater supply,” said Jerry Maxwell, General Manager for Tampa Bay Water. “We are eager for American Water-Pridesa to complete the remediation, but our main goal is to have it done right and we see that progress is being made in this regard.”

With FDEP plant clearance, American Water-Pridesa will begin ramping up operations to 25 million gallons per day and running all systems concurrently to reach mechanical completion, a contractual milestone that includes a check of all processes. Once mechanical completion is achieved, AWP will begin a 30-day run-in and acceptance testing period to demonstrate that the plant can sustain operations and meet all contractual obligations. Throughout this period, the region will continue to receive desalinated seawater into the drinking water system.

“American Water-Pridesa continues to work aggressively to complete commissioning of the plant. We are excited that the facility is now operational and providing the Tampa Bay region with an added source of drinking water during such a dry time of year.” said Donald Correll, president and chief executive officer of American Water, the largest private water services provider in North America.

When fully operational, the plant can provide up to 10 percent of the region's drinking water supply. Up to 25 million gallons a day of desalinated water will be blended with other sources to meet the growing needs of the region. From 2003 to 2005, the plant delivered approximately 5 billion gallons of drinking water to the region before being taken offline for remediation construction.

The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant is the largest seawater desalination plant in North America . It is a drought-proof component of Tampa Bay Water's drinking water system that also includes water drawn from area rivers, a 15-billion gallon, off-stream reservoir, and groundwater systems. Tampa Bay Water provides drinking water to six member governments including Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties and the cities of New Port Richey, St. Petersburg and Tampa , who in turn provide water to nearly 2.4 million people in the region.

American Water – Pridesa LLC (AWP) is a partnership between American Water and Pridesa (now Acciona Agua, the new parent of Pridesa America Corporation). AWP secured the contracts on November 15, 2004 to remediate the facility and provide operations of the facility over a 20 year period. American Water backs the guarantees for the project.

With headquarters in Voorhees , NJ , American Water employs approximately 7,000 dedicated professionals who provide high quality water, wastewater and other related services to more than 17 million people in 29 states and Canada .

Acciona Agua (www.acciona-agua.com) is one of the largest seawater desalination companies in the world.  Over the past 25 years, Acciona Agua has designed, built and operated nearly 70 desalination facilities and 320 water treatment plants around the world. Based in Madrid , Spain , Acciona is one of the largest infrastructure companies in Europe with 30,000 employees and a market capitalization over $10 billion.