Tampa Bay Water Desalter – Back on Track

North America’s largest seawater desalination plant was to have started continuous operation in 2003 on the West Coast of Florida. The project began as a privately owned Design-Build-Own-Operate and Transfer (DBOOT) type of project. This paper will describe the project challenges faced, how Tampa Bay Water managed key project risk issues to make the 25-million-gallon-per-day (mgd) plant on Tampa Bay operate efficiently. It will present lessons learned and the benefits achieved by Tampa Bay Water’s continued commitment to delivering a drought proof supply of desalinated water for the Tampa Bay region.