Metro working to increase water supply from Nooitgedacht
The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is working hard to maximise its extraction from the Nooitgedacht water treatment works and should be able to raise it by up to 40 megalitres in the next month, metro water and sanitation director Barry Martin said yesterday.
Speaking during a site visit, Martin said the pending increase linked to the Grassridge temporary water treatment facility would help the metro prevail for another year despite the continuing drought, by which time the long-running phase three project at Nooitgedacht would be complete, increasing and securing water security.
Addressing acting mayor Thsonono Buyeye, infrastructure and engineering political boss Andile Lungisa and media at Grassridge, Martin said the facility was presently treating 30Ml of water piped through the high-level line from Nooitgedacht.
“We’ve been steadily streamlining the system and within three weeks we will be in a position to raise that volume to 60-70Ml.
“This is significant because it means we will then be able to increase our overall extraction through the Nooitgedacht system.
“At present we’re extracting 170Ml and once Grassridge is functioning optimally we will be able to extract at least 200Ml.”
Martin said the metro’s latest water use figure was 300Ml a day, down from the shocking figure of 327Ml confirmed by the national water department for March, but still a way off the 250Ml the metro was pushing to achieve.
He said that while one-third of the Bay’s water came from the dams on the western side of the metro, two-thirds came from Nooitgedacht, situated near Addo, which in turn was supplied by the Orange River via the Gariep Dam — which just a month ago was full to the brim.
From the Gariep, the water was channelled over 400km via the Fish and Sundays rivers and interlinked tunnels, canals and smaller dams to Nooitgedacht.
Referring to the metro’s western dams, the low level of the Impofu especially and the argument that the now repaired barge should be deployed to harvest supply from the dead water zone, he said the metro would not be following this strategy.
“The longer we can save water in the west and rather maximise extraction here on the northern side of the city the better.”
At Nooitgedacht, a Stefanutti Stocks team was working on site and Martin showed the tour party how they were expanding the plant’s filtration and treatment capacity.
“There have been a number of delays with this phase three project related to funding from national government, but it should be complete by June 2021, at which time we anticipate that we will be able to treat and extract 210Ml a day.
“When that happens we will be able to decommission Grassridge, which has been working well but which is only a temporary facility.
“Completion of Nooitgedacht phase three will give us a permanent solution to increase and secure our water supply.”
Asked about the huge overflow situation at Olifantskop Reservoir on the main pipeline between Nooitgedacht and the metro, which saw tens of millions of litres of clean water running into the bush apparently every month for years, Martin said the problem had been fixed.
Shock footage showed water rushing across a dirt road so deep that cars could not get through.
Local farmer Jakkie Erasmus said despite repeated alerts communicated to the metro, the same thing had been happening several times a month for about three years but it had been especially bad over the past year.
Martin said he had only recently learnt of the situation, however.
“It was a manual system and there was a communication failure.
“Now we have installed an electronic system that signals our head office when the reservoir is full and the pumps are automatically turned off.”