Dam levels critically low

Acting Chief Executive Officer of Lepelle Northern Water Board (LNW) Phineas Legodi last Thursday informed the visiting Parliamentary Select Committee on Social Services just how bad the water situation in the province was in the light of the continuing drought.
He informed the committee that Limpopo was declared a disaster area in all five district municipalities on 4 November 2015 and that the storage in the 26 major dams in the province stood at 51,8% on 15 August. This time last year it stood at 78,5%.
Quoting from his presentation, some levels of dams in Mopani and Vhembe, Capricorn and Sekhukhune are very low, such as the Tzaneen Dam (Capricorn District) 25%, Middle –Letaba Dam (between Elim and Giyani) at 22,1%, Nsami Dam (Mopani District) at 8,6%, Glen Alpine (near Mokopane) at 2,45%, Luphephe Dam (near Musina) at 13,9%, Nzhelele Dam (Vhembe district) at 21,2% and the Mutshedzi Dam (near Thohoyandou) at 13,1%.
Legodi explained plans in the pipeline to augment the province’s water supply through raising of the Tzaneen dam’s wall by 3 metres, construction of the Nwamitwa dam in the Great Letaba River, transfer of water from the Crocodile River by a 160 km pipeline to Lephalale, transfer from Flag Boshielo and De Hoop Dams, the Nandoni bulk water supply system and how far the readiness for implementation of these projects were.
Legodi said LNW will be responsible for water provision to the entire Limpopo’s water services authorities and industries, with the exception of parts of the Waterberg district.
He also explained the Polokwane Ministerial Water Intervention to alleviate shortages and get the moratorium on development in the city lifted as well as Mopani Water Intervention and challenges experienced affecting water supply coverage to 55 villages in Giyani.
Challenges identified were, among others, limited water resources and aging infrastructure, limited contract and project management capacity, unauthorised water connections, vandalism and theft, non-payment of water services, limitation in the implementation of cost recovery and credit control and lack of water conservation and demand management.
Chairperson of the Select Committee of Social services Cathy Dlamini asked what the alternatives were if money was not available for all the plans made to augment water resources. She said people needed to be appointed and finance was the real problem. She asked if plans were in place if the dams’ water has been depleted to assist citizens with water provision and what have been done to get people to save water. She said after the presentation was delivered she still did not have the big picture of the extent of the programme and how many people still need water provision.
“The presentation talks to bulk delivery, but what does reticulation look like?” she asked. She said she was happy to hear about the plans for dams but asked if there was money for it.”If not, what is the plan?”

Story and photo: NELIE ERASMUS
>>nelie.observer@gmail.com

Featured photo: Acting Chief Executive Officer of Lepelle Northern Water Board (LNW) Phineas Legodi and Chairperson of the board, Kennedy Tshivashe.