AMERICAN Plays a Role in Rebuilding Puerto Rico’s Infrastructure
AMERICAN Flow Control, AMERICAN Ductile Iron Pipe, Water and Wastewater
Located about 1,000 miles southeast of Florida in the Caribbean Sea, the island of Puerto Rico is often in the eye of severe storms in the Atlantic Basin, testing the resiliency of its infrastructure – water and wastewater alike. One such storm, Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm with 155 mile-per-hour winds, made landfall on the island on September 17, 2017, causing massive flooding and landslides and damaging Puerto Rico’s already delicate infrastructure.
More than seven years later, recovery efforts continue, and AMERICAN Ductile Iron Pipe and AMERICAN Flow Control are playing a key role in rebuilding Puerto Rico’s infrastructure.
“The delay in restoration was caused by several things – subsequent storms, an earthquake, the COVID pandemic and rising inflation,” said M.J. Lyons, International Sales. “AMERICAN is proud to be a part of these rebuilding efforts to ensure the health and safety of Puerto Ricans.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have all assisted in disaster response efforts in Puerto Rico. Through FEMA, more than 11,000 projects have been funded, including improvements to the Guayama Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). This and other water-related projects are being managed by the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), which owns and operates Puerto Rico’s public water and wastewater systems.
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The Guayama WWTP project will increase the sewer system’s capacity to handle wastewater as the population continues to grow and involves the construction of two new pump stations as well as gravity and force sewer lines. As part of this project, more than 6,500 feet of 4- to 42-inch Fastite and Flex-Ring AMERICAN Ductile Iron Pipe; Amarillo Fast Grip gaskets; and 24- to 42-inch AMERICAN Flow Control resilient wedge gate valves are being installed.
Work at the Guayama WWTP is ongoing, and other projects are expected to begin in the coming months and will continue for the next five to seven years. AMERICAN is also providing pipe and valves for a bridge replacement project on Roosevelt Avenue. “In total, AFC supplied six 4- to 10-inch series 3500 resilient wedge gate valves and two 30-inch series 2500 gate valves for the Roosevelt Avenue project,” said AMERICAN Flow Control Sales Engineer Gabe Restrepo. “Having one source for valves and pipe for this and other projects was a major benefit for PRASA.”
Since Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth and financing is coming from the U.S. government, materials used must be American made. Water and wastewater projects fall under the Build America, Buy America Act and the American Iron and Steel (AIS) provision, which requires the use of iron and steel products made in the U.S. AMERICAN’s products met these requirements, and the company provided the necessary AIS certifications.
PRASA serves about 3.5 million residents and 4 million visitors each year. Its system includes 116 water filtration plants, 51 wastewater treatment plants, 1,723 pump stations and more than 20,000 miles of pipelines. Because Puerto Rico is an island with varied topography, isolated demographic distributions and a diverse mix of users, the system is more fragmented and therefore the authority must maintain more treatment facilities than utilities serving a similar number of customers.
