Hamma Water Desalination Plant: planning and funding

Algeria has a 1200 km coastline on the southern rim of the Mediterranean, which offers great potential for the desalination of seawater to supply much needed drinking water. The Hamma Desalination Plant, situated near Algiers, is the largest desalination plant in Africa. It will supply up to 200,000 m3/d of essential potable water to the Algiers area. This $200 million dollar Build–Own–Operate plant was required to meet both the legislative requirements of the Algerian Government and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s (OPIC) Environmental Procedures — underpinned by World Bank Guidelines. In consequence, detailed environmental assessments were required. Metoc was selected by the Hamma Water Desalination Company to undertake the studies and obtain approval for the plant. The plant is an excellent example of good site selection (infrastructure availability, use of reclaimed land); environmental impact assessment and mitigation (delivery against established procedures, clear identification of issues and mitigation procedures); and understanding of engineering and operational risk (recirculation of hypersaline discharges, consideration of external pollution sources). This paper is set against a backdrop of gaining planning approval and funding for the Hamma Water Desalination Plant. The focus of the paper is to draw attention to three features of the work that were of note, either because they were examples of good practice in action, or because they had the potential to bring, commercial benefit to the project. These were the areas of site selection, methodology development and environmental modelling. The purpose of the paper is to share this experience as it may be of material benefit to the desalination community in its future developments.