Water, water, water, the municipality’s water problems are never-ending.
It is a known fact that the municipality’s water supply is under severe strain as a result of massive population growth, insufficient capacities, and limited budgets.
“Add to that political will,” said Mr Henro Kruger, a Member of Parliament and a resident of eMalahleni for more than 30 years.
Kruger invited the Shadow Minister of Water and Sanitation, Mr Leon Basson, and Mr Hermias Nieuwoudt from NuWater to visit eMalahleni on Friday, October 4.
NuWater high performing water treatment plants are designed to address these water problems quickly, easily and efficiently.
These fully automated smart plants can provide the additional capacities required to allow the existing water treatment plants to run at their designed capacity; thereby ensuring volumes and quality standards are met.
At Emalahleni Local Municipality there are numerous sites suitable for these fully automated smart plants.
Point B was the first site and has been in production since 2015.
Point B required infrastructure investment but the municipality had no financial means, therefore, NuWater decided to start small.
“The initial capacity was six megalitres per day. They increased the plant’s capacity to 15 megalitres at the beginning of 2019 and are currently installing the last five megalitres per day. This will take Point B to 20 megalitres per day. It has already treated over nine billion litres of water to potable standard,” Kruger explained.
All the infrastructure investments were done by NuWater at their risk.
Point D is a reclamation site; this is backwash water from the conventional waterworks.
“NuWater’s equipment can recover approximately 70% or 10 megalitres per day from this backwash water and treat this to a potable standard. However, approximately R20 million worth of infrastructure investment is required by the municipality before NuWater can start with production,” Kruger said.
Another possible site is at Highveld Steel, on the R104 next to the N4.
Approximately R18 million worth of infrastructure investment is required by the municipality before NuWater can start with the production of a 10 megalitres per day water treatment plant.
This strategy will add an additional 35 megalitres a day which means a major relieve on the system.
“All the above water treatment plants will be operated and maintained by NuWater,” Nieuwoudt said.
Basson will take the plan to parliament to seek national funding for the projects.
“The distribution network is very old and is confidently used by Emalahleni’s administration. In Cape Town the council adopts a strategy that replaces the pipes 100 metres from where it burst, hence the opportunity to replace the entire network in a short period of time and make the whole exercise much more affordable. Their water loss because of the strategy is less than 14%. No new building plans get approved without a duel system, one for potable water and one for grey-water. I will propose this strategy to the council as soon as possible. Because of the strong political will, committed administration and backed up with an active civil society they reduced their water uses from 1.2 million megalitres to just over 600 000 per day, in four years – a world record,” Basson said.
Basson said the problem in Emalahleni is that there is no political will or an administration commitment to solving the problem.
“An active civil society must unite and start saving the use of water and make sure that the administration complies with South Africa’s constitution. Either comply or be replaced, that’s what democracy means,” he concluded.
Municipal spokesperson Mr Lebo Mofokeng said modular package plants proved to be efficient and cost effective hence they are using it in the municipality.
“The municipality is responsible for raw water feed supply, electricity and in some cases for enabling infrastructure and for the rental payments of these units,” Mofokeng said.
He said the municipality requested a follow-up with Basson for more insight into this project and possible site visits will follow soon.
