GWI intends to restore Diamond well within 2 weeks

– mulls constructing new well at 6th Ave

Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) on Friday commenced restorative work on the well at Sixth Avenue, Diamond, after its casing collapsed two weeks ago.
GWI’s in-house technical team moved immediately to procure pipelines and other necessary fittings, and estimates that the issue will be fixed within the next two weeks.
Water from this well feeds into the Diamond Treatment Plant and provides for some 20,000 residents in Diamond and its surrounding areas.

“We know that the residents in Diamond and surrounding areas up to Prospect and Herstelling will be affected with a lower level of service,” Chief Executive Officer of GWI, Shaik Baksh noted while asking residents to be patient.
GWI’s Groundwater and Well Services Manager, Orin Browne, shared that the team will be working to install the 6-inch and 10-inch polyvinyl chloride (PVC) casings into the approximately 660-feet well, a process he described as similar to drilling a new well altogether.
“We have our hole drilling rig [which is] the ideal machine that will be drilling to get out the sand that has collapsed into the hole [and] bring it up to the surface…we will then proceed to take out the existing [well] sleeve that we suspect is compromised and we will restore it with those casings that we have underground here.”

Though it is a “very technical piece of work,” Browne related that the company’s technical team of engineers, technical officers, welders and mechanics have been trained to get the job done.
“At the bare minimum, on any given shift, we’ll have at least seven persons pushing for 24 hours of non-stop work as much as the weather permits it,” Browne said.
In the interim, another well at the Diamond Treatment Plant is currently serving the affected residents. GWI also adjusted the boundary valves to extend the Eccles service area to supplement losses incurred from this well’s collapse.
This is the second time the well has collapsed, with the previous instance occurring in 2016.

“In 2016, we had a collapse which was using carbon seal casings which were not very good so here, we’ve improved on the casings. These are top-of-the-line casings that we have here,” Baksh said. “We’re hoping that this will stand up for many years to come,” Baksh related.
He also disclosed plans to build a new well within the current Sixth Avenue, Diamond well site.
“[This would be] so that residents of Diamond and all the areas served by this well can now have a higher pounds per square inch (PSI) [water pressure] so that the water can go higher up into their houses and so on,” Baksh said.