Watlington Waterworks Ltd is marking its 80th anniversary with the release of a new book chronicling the company’s history.“Harry’s Dream” describes how Sir Henry Watlington, in the early years of the 20th century, saw the need for a supply of fresh water beyond what was gathered from roofs, as demand grew with the expanding tourism industry.His vision of tapping groundwater sources was finally realised with the founding of the company in 1932, a firm which is today one of Bermuda’s most important commercial enterprises, as it provides a critical part of the Island’s fresh water supply and infrastructure.This year, Watlington Waterworks will sell something close to 500 million gallons, with the heaviest demand coming in the summer months when the Island consumes more than six million gallons of water per day.Watlington’s CEO Allan Rance pointed out that a fresh water supply on a small and remote island was one of the major challenges for the first settlers in the 17th century and remains a challenge to this day.Rainwater gathered from roofs does not meet all demand, especially during drought conditions, and even groundwater has its limits.“The demand is greatest when the supply is the least,” Mr Rance said. “When there is less rainwater, there is less water going into tanks. Groundwater can only be used at the recharge rate and that is dependent on the amount of rainfall.”Because freshwater is less dense than seawater, it sits on the top of the ocean, forming a lens within the Island’s permeable rock. The main lens in Devonshire contains about 2.2 billion gallons of fresh water.Through a system of tunnels and boreholes the water is extracted and then processed. Since a significant upgrade in 1979, Watlington’s water has been potable.Watlington backs up its groundwater supplies with a desalination operation capable of producing more than one million gallons of fresh water per day from seawater.Mr Rance rejects the criticism that desalination is inefficient in terms of energy consumption. “The amount of energy we use to produce a cup of water is about 1.08 watts,” he said. “To put that in perspective, you use about 88 watts to make a cup of coffee and 120 watts to use a hairdryer.”Reverse osmosis technology used in desalination had progressed and become much more energy-efficient in recent years, he added.Way back in 1911, Sir Henry Watlington saw the importance — and the business opportunity — of meeting rising water demand. In 1924, the House of Assembly rejected his initial proposal to test the groundwater resources.In the summer of 1930, he did it himself. The test results were good, so he ploughed everything he had into building a plant on Parsons Lane that cost 80,000 pounds — a massive sum in those times.Water was processed at the plant and piped to a reservoir at Prospect from where two pipelines transported the water in to the City of Hamilton as far as the Princess Hotel, and also to the Elbow Beach Hotel on the South Shore. Over the years the network of pipelines spread throughout the City of Hamilton and along the South Shore, eventually extending as far as Southampton Parish.In 1994 the company invested in a reverse osmosis plant on the North Shore in Devonshire, taking the water from the seawater wells and removing all impurities to provide drinking quality water.This new technology has been continually updated and upgraded and now the North Shore complex houses six reverse osmosis plants.Watlington also owns Pure Water, a bottled water firm that it acquired in 1996. The company sells about 250,000 three- and five-gallon bottles of water per year in reusable containers.“Harry’s Dream”, authored by Jonathan Bell and Roger Crombie, and designed by Linda Weinraub of Fluent, has just gone on sale in local bookstores and at Pure Water at 32 Parsons Lane, Devonshire.