Business View Caribbean, July/August 2018

66 67 THEWATER AUTHORITY OF THE CAYMAN ISLANDS public water supplies. n To protect and develop groundwater resources for the benefit of present and future populations of these islands. n To provide for the collec- tion, treatment and disposal of sewage within these islands in a manner that is safe, efficient and affordable. n To operate in such a manner as to be financially self-suffi- cient,while contributing to the economy of these islands and achieving a reasonable and acceptable return on capital investments. Recently, Business ViewCa- ribbean posed some questions to Dr. Gelia Frederick-van Gen- deren,Director of the Water Authority of the Cayman Islands. The following is an edited tran- script of her replies: BVC: Can you talkabout the historyof theAuthorityand some of its important milestones? Frederick-van Genderen: “This is a very exciting year for the Water Authority because it represents the 35th Anniversary of the Authority’s establishment in 1983. Looking at the Water Authority today, it is hard to imagine that this multimillion-dollar water and wastewater utility was once a small government project funded by a grant from the United Nations Development Program. “Back in those days, the Authority was just coming into its own and figuring out the path forward.The Authority’s initial plan to supply the population of the Cayman Islands with water was to make use of the country’s groundwater resourc- es. It quickly became apparent, however, that this would not be feasible in the long term, so the Authority decided to turn to desalination.The first water production plant utilized waste heat from the local electricity supplier to produce desalinat- Florida Aquastore conducts maintenance on a WAC reservoir