MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay: Desalination plant arrives from United States to fight the water crisis

The unit did not fit into the aircraft and had to be carried by ship

Uruguayan authorities Thursday confirmed the arrival in Montevideo of a desalination plant bought in the United States to fight the water crisis hitting the country. The piece of equipment was expected to take about four weeks to be delivered from Houston, but in the end, it was over two months.

The purchase of the unit by the water-supplying company Obras Sanitarias de Estado (OSE) and the Technological University of Uruguay (Utec) had been announced on May 16 with a delivery date set for early June, but the plant did not fit in the airplane that was to carry it and therefore it had to be transported by ship.

The transaction was arranged for a price of US$ 120,000 through the Hydro Application Consulting Group.

The plant will initially be used by OSE for two years and then it will belong to Utec, it was explained. The unit will produce “approximately 200,000 liters of demineralized water per day,” Utec said in a statement.

“Its very high quality also allows it to be mixed with other sources of water from the drinking water distribution system and expand the production capacity to approximately 300,000 liters of water of excellent quality to be delivered to the population. At a rate of two liters of water consumption per day per person, this unit could generate drinking quality water for approximately 150,000 people,” it added.

The acquisition of a desalination plant was one of the measures announced by Presidential Secretary Álvaro Delgado to address the water deficit in Montevideo and the metropolitan area, which led OSE to increase sodium and chloride levels to guarantee the resource to the population.