Monrovia – The Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation and the Millennium Challenge Account Liberia (MCA-L) have signed a US$18 million agreement for the construction of the major pipeline responsible to supply pipe-bone water to over one million customers in Monrovia and its environs.
Before the signing of the implementation entity agreement (IEA) on Wednesday in Monrovia, Monie R. Captan, Chief Executive Officer of the MCA-L, outlined the significant intervention the rehabilitation of the pipeline would have on the country’s water supply.
“Now with this pipeline in place, you will basically open the flow of water additionally, because of the growth in population and that number of people water and sewer has to serve,” Mr. Captan said.
“We have decided to install a bigger pipeline than the original one that was there. The original one was 900mm in diameter which will be replaced by a 1,200mm – so, its give a bigger one in capacity.”
The objective of the Raw Water Pipeline Project is to replace the damaged 36-inch diameter pipeline from the dam at the Mt. Coffee Hydropower Plant (MCHPP) to the White Plains Water Treatment Plant (WTP).
Since the pipeline was destroyed during the civil war in the 1990s during the Civil war, the LWSC has been pumping water from the St. Paul River by means of a river intake and pump station at the WTP.
A new 48-inch diameter pipeline will be constructed for water to reach the WTP via gravity flow, which will replace the need for river intake, reduce the cost for electricity associated with use of a pump station, and eliminate salt-water intrusion at the WTP caused by river intake during the dry season that results in poor water quality, a release from the MCA-L said.
The US$18 million proposed pipeline is approximately 3.1 miles long and generally follows the original alignment of the pipeline with small deviations.
The construction of the new pipeline will result in consistent and quality water supply to the nearly one million residents of Monrovia.
Duannah A. Kamara, Managing Director of the LWSC, described the signing of the agreement as a “milestone” for the corporation and the people of LIberia.
“The fact that our development partner, the Americans, are thinking about helping us to solve some of these issues the honorable man just explained about the water quality, it is important, because they help to save the population of this country and we must commend them for their effort,” Kamara said.
“We are going to have abundance of water now, coming into the water treatment plant which will help us serve the people of Monrovia and its environs.”
However, he stressed that the LWSC faces a serious constraint due to the limited electricity supply to generate more force in order to supply water to customers adequately.
He added: “If we can have a solar panel at that facility, we will be able to lift the burden on LEC. We owe LEC in the tone of US$2.4 million dollar.”
“So, these are some of the problem we have at the entity and we need to start looking at a way to solve them. once some of the facilities are improve, our ability to supply water in the communities will improve and it’s also going to improve health. We can assure the folks that we are going to manage the facility.”
If the reliability and quality of water delivered by the system improves, it is to be expected that a greater percentage of the city and county population will obtain their water from the public water system.
MCA-L is working closely with the LWSC to ensure smooth implementation of the pipeline activity.
The Raw Water Pipeline is a subproject under the Energy project of the $257 Million grant to Liberia from the Government of the United States through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
The MCC Compact focuses on enhancing Liberia’s energy project is to provide greater access to reliable and affordable electricity to the citizens of Liberia. The project addresses several problems facing the energy sector including the rehabilitation of the Mount Coffee Rehabilitation Activity, the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) Training Center Activity and the energy sector reform activity.
The four activities are complementary and aim to connect more homes and businesses to reliable and affordable electricity to drive sustainable economic growth.