Business View Caribbean
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On Grand Cayman, the Water Authority currently owns
four RO plants, two of which are located in George
Town and have capacities of 5,000 and 6,000 cubic
meters per day. Another, in Lower Valley, operates at
3,000 cubic meters per day, and the North Side plant
produces 9,000 cubic meters per day. The water pro-
duced by these RO plants is stored in 8 reservoirs,
which have a total storage capacity of 51,100 m3 or
13.5 million US gallons. The Water Authority’s Grand
Cayman Water Distribution system presently compris-
es 300 miles of pipe work, varying in size between 3
inches and 16 inches.
“In Cayman Brac, it’s a little different,” van Zanten
says. “It’s a smaller island with about 2,000 people.
We started there with a small RO plant and a very
small distribution system in 1991. The rest of the is-
land was covered by five water trucks that we own and
operate. Historically, it was about 50 percent pipeline,
50 percent trucks. And that lasted for quite some time.
Two years ago, we started expanding our distribution
system in Cayman Brac and, hopefully, in about ten or
twelve years’ time, we’ll have that entire island cov-
ered with piped water, as well.
“There’s also a small island, Little Cayman, which has
only a few hundred permanent residents who rely on
tourism, and we will have a small plant on that island
as well and we will truck the water to various custom-
ers, because, based on the number of customers we
would have there, and the size of the island, it isn’t
economically feasible to provide piped water to that
island.”
Regarding wastewater, in 1988, the Water Authority
completed the construction of the West Bay Beach
Sewerage System, which provided for the collection
of wastewater from the main tourist area along Seven
