Environmental audit for the compliance and registration of existing water plant at Hulhule Island Hotel, K. Hulhule

Abstract

1. Hulhule Island Hotel (HIH) is a joint venture partnership between Maldives Airports Company Ltd (MACL) and Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SAT). Established in early 1990s the 85 room international four-star hotel undertook a major expansion and refurbishment in 2001/2002 with addition of 51 rooms, now totaling 136. Located on Airport Island, just 2.5 km from Malé the fivestart HIH is now popular among the airline crew and visiting businessmen and consultants. The facility has separate arrival north of the main entrance to airport ferry terminals. 2. As part of the new government requirements relating to regulation of water service provides, all existing water production facilities has to be registered the EPA before end of August 2011. As part of the registration process an Environmental Audit (EA) has to be undertaken as required under Schedule D of the Maldives Environmental Impact Assessment Regulation. A separate scoping meeting for this audit was not held instead a standard scope and ToR was provided by the EPA. 3. This EA report concerns the status of the existing water production plant at HIH which produces water exclusively for Hotel use. The facility has two RO plant units each with a capacity of 73m3/day with a current average production capacity of about 130m3/day. The in-house production is not sufficient and HIH purchase about 75m3/day from the MACL. Pipes have been laid from the source at MACL to the HIH facility for convenient supply of water. Data supplied by HIH for the past 60 days shows that on average HIH facility produced 38m3 /day and purchased about 80m3/day from MACL/GMR. The average daily usage of the water at HIH is 110 m3/day. 4. Owing to the nature of the business stringent measures are in place to monitor the quality of water and maintenance of standard operating procedures at all times. Similarly water quality of MACL/GMR supplied water is also checked at regular basis and the records are maintained at HIH for inspection. 5. The feed water for the plant is obtained direct from the sea. The intake pipe is laid over the reef on the slope at a depth of 5m deep. The intake water is fed directly into series of sand filters. The water is further passed through a carbon filters before passing into the RO membranes. The produced water is passed through a UV filter before pumping into the storage tanks and piping into the plumbing system. The storage tanks at HIH are 270 m2 which is roughly 2 days water of water requirement at 80% hotel capacity. The reject water (brine) is discharge into the lagoon. 6. The noise levels at the facility were found to be slightly above average, around 60db at 20m distance. The facility, however, is located some distance away from other back-of-the-house facilities and staff are not exposed to noise on routine basis. The RO plant staff is provided with mufflers and ear plugs to be used when servicing or during routine maintenance. 7. The environmental impact of operating and use of RO plant at HI fond to be insignificant. The audit concluded the environmental standards meet expected levels required by the existing government rules.