Water infrastructure big business for the North

Neil Macleod, head of eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS), said that the municipality had released a further R580-million over the next three years to accelerate the city’s water infrastructure projects. This would not only ensure earlier completion of the Western Aqueduct, but also bring forward the start of the Northern Aqueduct to ensure water was available for critical development projects such as Cornubia.

Project Manager, Martin Bright, said that the first contract of the Northern Aqueduct, which starts at Phoenix Reservoir 2 and extends to the Waterloo Reservoir near Verulam, had already gone out to tender. This includes a link to the uMhlanga Reservoir in uMhlanga Rocks Drive. It was hoped that the tender would be awarded at the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2013, he said.

Segmented plan for North

A tender to construct the new Blackburn Reservoir is also going through the tender evaluation process. This reservoir will play a crucial part in supplying water to Cornubia.

He said the second contract within the Northern Aqueduct project, between Duffs Road and the Phoenix 2 Reservoir, was undergoing an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

“Documentation is currently with the Department of Environmental Affairs. This is a very important link as it will boost water supply for the Cornubia development via the pipeline to be constructed under the first contract of the Northern Aqueduct.”

The Northern Aqueduct project was designed and is being monitored by the Knight Piesold/Naidu Consulting Joint Venture.

Bright said that, unlike the Western Aqueduct, the Northern Aqueduct was not being constructed in linear fashion. Segments in areas of critical need would be put in place first which would allow water to be routed to important areas from reservoirs with spare capacity in order to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of water.

Honeymoon period for now

Macleod, who has long warned that Durban’s demand for water outstripped demand which would entail severe water restrictions during the slightest drop in rainfall, said the city is currently ‘in a honeymoon period’.

With the new Springrove Dam near Mooi River coming on stream and abnormally high rainfall ensuring that existing dams are full, he said that the balance between supply and demand had been restored for the time being.

“However, as new development continues, we will go back into deficit. So, each year going forward is critical. From 2014 onwards, we start slipping back to where the supply is not statistically able to meet the demand.”

He said a tenuous water situation was acceptable whilst the northern regions of the city were filled with sugar cane. Massive development required not only an adequate but a reliable supply of water which could not be guaranteed at this stage. Existing infrastructure provided no Plan B should a problem arise and water needed to be diverted from another part of the network to another.

“We may have enough water to meet the current demand but we don’t have the infrastructure to deliver it to where it is needed. We don’t have the network capacity,” he said, adding that this had led to the municipality holding back on future development plans.”

Tankers supply water

The existing water network to the north of Durban is stretched to the limit. Macleod said water outages in Ntuzuma and parts of Inanda were happening almost daily and said that the eThekwini Municipality had given permission for EWS to add a further 27 tankers to bring its fleet to 70. “These will be used for areas where supply is not adequate while we wait for the Northern and Western Aqueducts to be up and running,” he said.

Bright said that construction of the Western Aqueduct, which will ultimately feed water into the Northern Aqueduct, was gathering momentum.