IT is rumoured that the idea for Watlington Waterworks was inspired after Harry Watlington spotted a farmer drinking water he'd literally cupped from the ground on a plot of land in Devonshire.

Examination proved the source bottomless, Mr. Watlington pushed ahead with his idea and today there exists a system which enables a steady supply of water through the City of Hamilton and parts of certain parishes.

This week, reporter HEATHER WOOD discussed desalination, pipe laying and the benefits of water with the company president and CEO, Allan Rance.

Q: How long has Watlington Waterworks been around?

A: Watlington Waterworks was started as a business in 1932. (Sir) Harry started it after establishing an underground source of water existed that was sufficiently stable and large that you could pump out of it on a continuous basis and it would not run dry.

He envisaged a need for a supplemental water supply, particularly for the City of Hamilton where you had large population density and multi-storey buildings with limited roof catchment, (but also) for the growing tourist industry to assist with industrial (activities) such as laundry, cooking, washing - all the sort of things that use a lot of water in a hotel.

Q: How did it work?

A: He (built) a plant to treat the water that was extracted from the ground. The water was pumped into a reservoir located at a high elevation and then it was run, by gravity. A pipeline ran down Reid Street to catch the businesses on Front Street and Reid Street and a pipeline was later laid on Church Street, to pick up those businesses and which, in fact, spans across to some on Victoria Street as well.

Q: And it ran successfully?

A: It did, but when World War Two came along, the company really came to a halt. You couldn't get pipes; you couldn't get all the materials needed. So very little happened. After the war, things started to get up to speed again and the company proceeded, expanding pipeline.

Q: When did the company begin offering desalinated water?

A: In the mid-1960s, the company started doing business with a company in America which desalinated brackish water - raw water pumped out of the ground - using a membrane process. (Watlington) started to offer a service, particularly to the hotels, where it would desalinate the brackish water that was coming out of the ground on site - once it had been treated to make it sanitary - to make it into potable water.

Instead of just providing water that was good for flushing toilets, for using in a laundry, it produced water that could be used for all human consumption.

Q: And it continued to do this as a private venture?

A: It progressed and then in 1979 it entered into a joint operating agreement with the Bermuda Government, which enabled (them) to pool resources to produce potable water for the entire community.

Q: But that ended?

A: It was quite apparent that that agreement could not go on indefinitely. There were limited water resources and (we) had worked together and developed the ground water resources in the central part of the island to the fullest, by the late 1980s. We needed to have additional supplies of water as the needs of the community grew.

In the early 1990s we built a seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant and in 1994 (it) was commissioned and started to produce potable water for us. Our joint operating agreement with Government had ended towards the end of 1990.

We (had in its place), a simple buy-and-sell purchase agreement for the next three years while we developed our reverse osmosis plant and then (Watlington) again became again a totally separate, private water company.

Q: How much water can you produce?

A: We can produce 750,000 US gallons of water a day at our seawater plant, and we can produce about 325,000 imperial gallons a day from brackish water. It goes into the same reservoir that was built in 1932 and from there it's distributed to the City and the parishes of Devonshire, Paget, Warwick, Southampton and, of course, Pembroke.

Q: And the service is accessible to everyone in those parishes?

A: I shouldn't say everybody. At the moment we are limited as to what roads we are on. We try to do joint projects every year, with the other utilities to increase the number of roads that we have water pipes in. Some people will never want our water supply because they catch enough on their roof. Others have us as a top-up supply and they (believe) it really does help to improve the quality of life.

Q: How is that?

A: (It removes) the old Bermudian style of conserving. The way we used to live - not flushing the toilet except once or twice a day; bathing once every week to conserve water. If they've got our service, people do not have to feel if they water their vegetable garden they won't have water for that one bath a week.

It's available to them on demand. You just have to turn a tap and it runs into your water tank and tops it up; or you can have an automatic valve that will keep your tank at a particular level. I don't say waste it, but it can be used sensibly to improve sanitation and to improve your quality of life.

Q: What's the benefit over buying water from a trucking service?

A: Primarily a financial one. You can appreciate that (a trucker) has got to take the time to fill his water truck, he has to maintain his water truck, license his water truck, pay for a permit, give himself a wage - that costs money.

A water trucker will deliver water to you at a rate of somewhere between $50 and $60 for a truckload, whereas we charge $18.75 for 1,000 gallons. A truck normally carries 800 gallons. That's the big difference - the price and, of course, the convenience.

You can turn that tap on when you want it on. The water trucker, you have to telephone and order it, and sometimes when demand is high during a drought, you have to wait anywhere from two days to a week depending on where you fall in the queue for the order.

Q: Is the quality as good as rainwater?

A: Our quality meets or surpasses all the standards for North America and Europe as potable water. The sort of common, best understood quality is to talk about our water in terms of the total dissolved salts - or solids as we refer to it - that are in it.

Normally, rainwater will have 20 to 40, maybe as high as 100 parts per million (PPM) of dissolved solids. (It varies) for instance, when you have a hurricane as we just had. There's an awful lot of salt spray that's mixed with rain.

Our water is generally between 250 and 500 PPM - more salty than rainwater, but far less salty than (others). The threshold taste for the tongue for salt is somewhere around 700 PPM so you can appreciate our water taste, in terms of its salt content, is much below (that). The upper limit for North America and Europe is set at 500 PPM. Most of the time, we're somewhere around 300.

Q: How many miles of pipe do you have?

A: We haven't measured recently but of our main lines, I'd say somewhere in the region of 45 to 50 miles. And then, smaller pipes that go off them would be several more miles.

Q: How many customers subscribe to the service?

A: We have at the moment a little over 1,500 customers on the water utility itself.

Q: Why didn't Watlington develop a bottled water concept similar to Pure Water before that company began operating?

A: In the late 1980s, this company was looking at the concept of starting a bottled water division. We did some preliminary market studies and they (received) a fair-to-partly cloudy reading. In other words, for the capital investment we would be making there was a reasonable risk that it wouldn't catch on in the time frame we were looking at. And so we used our capital, more for the utility development.

Q: Why did you decide to take it over?

A: It started to grow as a business and an opportunity was presented to us midway through 1995. At the end of the day we purchased the business.

Q: How much does the water cost?

A: We've priced the five-gallon bottles at $10 and the three-gallon bottles at $5. The truth be known, the three-gallon bottle is actually costing us more to buy now than the five-gallon bottle. They both cost us almost $10 exactly.

Q: Did you ever consider that recycling the bottles might be a problem with residents?

A: We used to have recycling here with mineral or soda bottles and, I think, milk bottles in the earlier days. We did not want to contribute to the pollution on the island. It's a good economic solution to select a bottle that is reasonably robust so it can be recycled, washed, and used multiple times.

Q: But you did have a problem after Hurricane Fabian. I noticed an advertisement in The Royal Gazette asking customers to return used bottles to the facility.

A: We've been having a problem primarily with the three-gallon bottle, although it fluctuates depending on demand. I think there may have been some (first-time users) who, in the rush to buy water prior to the hurricane, may not have realised that the bottles were recyclable.

So bottles were going out and not coming back. It was making our operation extremely difficult. We had to import bottles every week - and we still are - to make up the difference. So that was why we put an ad out there. We wanted to make people aware they could get money back by returning bottles.

Secondly, we didn't want to hear that lots of our bottles were turning up in the incinerator because that's a terrible waste. We've seen a few more returned since the ad but not the (amount) we'd like to see. We live in a very prosperous community.

Maybe losing a $5 deposit on a bottle doesn't mean very much to some people (but) we live and hope. In times to come, we most likely will increase the deposit, particularly on the three-gallon bottle because it's equally as valuable as the five-gallon today. While we don't wish to discourage first-time buyers, we sure as heck want to encourage the recycling of the bottles.

Q: How many times can a bottle be recycled?

A: Studies that have been done indicate you may get 50 recycles on a bottle. We don't get that many here. Many people abuse our bottles. We thoroughly wash and sanitise the bottles but, if (one) comes back which somebody has urinated into or has put cigarette butts, we throw (it) away.

We get many bottles that come back that we have to destroy because they're not fit to put water in again, even with the sanitising. People do all sorts of things and then bring them in to collect their deposit. The one quick test is to smell the bottle; any foreign smell, we have to discard it.

Q: How pure is Pure Water?

A: The water we put in the bottle ordinarily has one, maybe two PPM of total dissolved solids - almost nothing. So it is pure water. We oxygenate the water; we sanitise it with a chemical called Ozone (which) changes to oxygen while it's sitting in the bottle.

We're a member of the International Bottled Water Association and our plant, our procedures, and our records are inspected every year by the National Sanitary Foundation. We're making an international quality product (and) I think when you compare our retail three-gallon bottle to the price per litre of all the other waters, you'll find that our water is slightly less expensive than many. And many of those other waters frankly, are not quite as good in quality as our water is.

Q: Why didn't you decide to expand even further - into smaller bottles?

A: We did but smaller bottles are much more difficult to produce than it might appear. The equipment needed to do it successfully is very expensive. As a consequence, you need to have a big market.

Really the only company I think here in Bermuda that can do that successfully is probably Barritt's because they're not just doing water, they're doing all sorts of drinks - Coca Cola, ginger ale - and you can use basically the same bottle-making equipment and similar filling equipment for multiple purposes.

In our situation we were concentrating solely on water and the equipment that we had wasn't the best; the cost of making the bottles was pretty expensive for us and at the end of the day, we were really losing money on that.

We could do it. There was a market. There were people who wanted our product.

But at the end of the day it was a financial realisation that Bermuda's market for small bottles is very congested. We couldn't make our bottled water so inexpensive that everybody wanted to buy it and we couldn't make enough of it, with the type of equipment that we had, that we could flood the market with the sort of business strategy needed to make it a success. So we exited from the small bottles.

Q: Last year you reported a $1 million profit for the first time ever. Are you strengthening that position?

A: We hope so. You may have noticed an article in The Royal Gazette last week. The headline, Watlington Waterworks expects a loss, was quite misleading. Hurricane Fabian set us back a little just like many other local businesses, so this year will not end up quite as strong as we expected it to be. But we expect it to be, nonetheless, another good year.

Q: How strong are the bottles?

A: If you have a full bottle of water and drop it from any height, you will split it because of the impact and the weight of water in it that makes it burst.

If you take an empty bottle, you can beat it and it will not split. Those bottles are made with the same material used to make bulletproof shields; shields like the police or Bermuda Regiment may use.

Our bottles are obviously not made that thick, but it's a very rugged material. Similarly, the resistance would be poor if you were to take a pair of scissors or a ball-point pen, and jab it in. So while it's a tough bottle it's not a foolproof bottle.

Q: Do you really believe we need to drink 64 ounces of water a day?

A: Yes. I believe 64 ounces is a benchmark for normal daily activity. If you're active, I think you need more - and it's not because I'm in the water business. There have been all sorts of studies done on the effect of not enough water on tissues of the brain and other important organs of the body.

Q: When did you join the company?

A: I joined the Waterworks full-time in 1975 and worked (there) until 1990 when I left to command the Bermuda Regiment for four years. I rejoined the company after I retired from the Regiment.

Q: What name does the company operate under?

A: Bermuda Waterworks is the operating company that does all the business of selling water through the water meter at your house, and selling and making the bottled water. We also operate a little plumbing shop if you need a water pump, pressure tank heater or something like that.

Watlington Waterworks is the holding company. The shareholders have their shares in the holding company; the holding company owns the land and the buildings and Bermuda Waterworks rents all that from Watlington Waterworks.

Q: Outside of your break with the Regiment, you've been with the same company for more than 20 years, ever get bored?

A: One of the interesting things about this company is the change going on. For many years, water technology and water treatment stayed basically the same. But certainly, in the last ten, 15 years, there've been rapid changes and advances in water treatment technology.

The end result is that today we have to keep examining and re-examining what we're doing; how we're doing it; why we're doing it, to stay competitive. And we do have competitors. We sell our product to a wide range of customers, and those customers have other options.

Q: Most of your staff is Bermudian. Is that intentional?

A: We try to do everything we can with the Bermudian workforce. Everybody here is either a Bermudian or spouse of a Bermudian with the exception of one person who's on a long-term residency certificate.

As technology gets more complicated, the bar has to be raised in terms of technical competence and we clearly have to be looking at how we can attract bright, young Bermudians to come and have a career in the public water supply.

That's a challenge for us. Many of our staff have been here for many years. I guess that speaks for itself but I think it's because we try to be a good employer.