Harness Blanco river for Greater Santo Domingo water supply

Teodoro Tejada explained that its environmental impact would not affect the population and does not have other harmful elements.

Given the alarming water deficit of greater Santo Domingo and exacerbated in times of significant droughts, water should be harnessed from the Blanco River. This is a better conceived and viable alternative to provide the city with water in abundance, quality, and at the lowest cost, said engineer Teodoro Tejada, former president of the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors (CODIA).

He explained that the population would not be affected by its environmental impact, nor does it have other negative elements, such as building the Haina dam or Madrigal dam, which means floods for the municipality Haina. He said that water is scarce basically because of the decrease in the flow of the Nizao River that feeds the Jigüey and Valdesia dams. These two dams supply the Valdesia-Santo Domingo aqueduct.

Tejada stressed that the water catchment of the Blanco River is a project designed by technicians with a high level of experience and capacity under the direction of engineer Abraham Selman.

He said that its estimated cost is $355 million, making it the most economical of all the projects that have been and supply water to Greater Santo Domingo, and an execution time of 30 months. “The function of the Rio Blanco dam is fundamentally for the production of electrical energy, through its hydroelectric plant, using the Blanco, Tireito, and Arroyon rivers, tributaries of the Yuna River. The sources of supply of this dam add up to a total flow of 9.73 cubic meters per second (m3/second).

The Blanco River has an average flow of 5.80 m3/sec., the Tireíto River 2.80 m3/sec., and the Arroyon River 1.13 m3/sec,” said engineer Tejada.

He stressed that the project requires a general electrical assembly, grounding, control system, instrumentation for two turbines of 15 megawatts (MW), and the machine house of the Rio Blanco Hydroelectric Plant.

Storage
Capacity building

The project has a scheme for water supply that would be stored in five regulatory tanks of capacities ranging from 158,400 gallons to 4.2 million gallons, with an expansion of the macro network with pipes of different diameters, whose intake of raw water, direct from the turbine water pipe, which is released from the Rio Blanco Hydroelectric Plant.