Outages affect treatment plant

By GYNNIE KERO
WATER PNG Ltd says recent water supply interruptions in Wewak, East Sepik, were caused by prolonged power outages at its Brandi intake and water treatment plants.
Acting managing director Parkop Kurua said Water PNG had paid for a new standby generator which to be commissioned in Wewak next month.
He was responding to questions from The National on the causes of continuous water disruptions affecting individuals and business communities and how soon the problem could be rectified.
Kurua said the Brandi Intake Genset was mostly affected after subjected to continuous prolonged blackouts.
“This affected water extraction resulting in low production that impacted major and domestic consumers,” he said.
Recently, a tuna company in Wewak ceased production for three days and laid off about 2,000 workers temporarily.
The South Seas Tuna Corporation Ltd said it had been struggling as it needed about 650,000 litres of water per day to process tuna.
“Apart from the production plant, we have identified areas in the distribution system to take appropriate action to improve water inflow at our Kreer Hill 3ml main storage tank,” it said. “We have paid our supplier for a brand new 150KVA standby genset to replace the existing aging genset to be installed and commissioned in early December.
“A team from Port Moresby visited Wewak last Tuesday and Wednesday and mitigating actions were set in place to be carried out to improve distribution.
“Concerns have also been raised on water disruptions in Madang earlier this month.” Kurua said water treatment plant power supply at Panim was disrupted on Friday night.
“The aerial distribution power transformer feeding the plant had its Pole broken due to the rotten wood pole holding the power transformer,” he said.
“PNG Power Ltd was contacted to restore the power supply.
“PNG Power finally restored the transformer on Wednesday.”