Palm Water has activated its first temporary water sewage treatment plant (STP) as part of a water and wastewater plant design, build, own and operate (DBOO) contract with the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority (Jafza) with an original budget of $550 million.

A water and wastewater utility company, Palm Water is a business division of Istithmar-owned Palm Utilities.
The facility services the Jafza View 18 and 19 twin towers as well as the new buildings constructed in Downtown Jebel Ali adjacent to the towers. It has a treatment capacity of 1,000 cu m per day, uses the latest membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology, and produces high-quality effluent that will eventually be used for irrigation purposes.
“This facility will provide us with valuable directions on how to further progress in the Jafza project, in terms of satisfying the needs of the free zone and its components. It also highlights the need for similar high-end water treatment facilities throughout the Middle East in order to better manage the region’s limited water reserves,” says Palm Utilities CEO Keith Levers.
Building and industrial projects alone in the Middle East will consume more than 112 billion litres of potable water from 2008 to 2009. The region plans to spend around $120 billion through 2017 on water investments to meet demand, especially from growth sectors such as construction and tourism. Reliable and efficient water and wastewater management services thus remain highly sought after, he says.
A second MBR facility has also been completed for the estimated 18,000 residents of the new Jafza South staff accommodation facility. The 8,000 cu m per day STP will use 20 per cent of its effluent to irrigate the staffing facility’s landscape. Palm Water has also installed tanker filling points to distribute effluent to other parts of the zone and surrounding developments for use in irrigation and construction.
Other temporary facilities being developed are a 750 cu m per day facility for the new Jafza Convention Centre and a 200 cu m per day facility for the new Technopark headquarters. The first two facilities and the effluent outfall construction took 18 months to complete at a cost of Dh53 million. Excess effluent, which meets the discharge criteria set out by Jafza, will be initially discharged to the sea via an already-existing 7-km outfall pipeline. The reuse of effluent for irrigation purposes will become effective once the irrigation networks are in place.
The facilities will eventually be replaced by a 112,000 cu m per day centralised MBR STP in Jafza South which will include a tanker reception facility to contain 4,000 cu m  per day of industrial wastewater. Palm Water is also developing an 80,000 cu m per day polished water plant to supply district cooling plants within Jafza, Technopark and Downtown Jebel Ali.
Palm Water and Jafza are also planning a 100,000 cu m per day sea water reverse osmosis (RO) plant in Jafza North to provide potable water to the free zone and Technopark facilities. The first phase of the permanent sewage and water facilities for the area will finish by the end of 2010, with a project completion target of late 2012.
 (State-of-art facility – Pg 46)