On Saturday morning July 6 US Ambassador Thomas Armbruster and US Navy Pacific Partnership 13 Commander CDRE Wallace Lovely were present at Delap dock to witness the loading of a 30,000 Gallon/day Reverse Osmosis Machine onto a US Navy landing craft for transport to the USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52) for onward movement to Ebeye. The R/O machine had been ordered by USAID five years ago and since its arrival in the RMI, has provided a strategic reserve of fresh water to Majuro Atoll and, in a larger sense, to the RMI as a whole.
Last month USAID determined that, in light of other increases in fresh water generation capacity in both the private sector and by USAID on Majuro, there was a higher priority for the large capacity machine to be on Ebeye. There it will serve as a reserve for Ebeye itself and as an additional source of fresh water closer to the northern atolls that are currently suffering through a drought disaster. The transport of the R/O machine by the Navy has saved many thousands of dollars in commercial transport costs that can now be applied to other emergency needs of the RMI.
