R500m sewer tunnel for city

Construction to take two years after deal sealed

BUFFALO City Metro is going ahead with its plan to build a R500million sewer tunnel to boost system capacity.

The council gave the green light to the project seven years ago when there was a clear indication that the metro’s population was growing quickly, and settlements – formal and informal – were mushrooming in every open space as thousands of job-seekers migrated from rural areas to be near the city centre.

BCM spokesman Samkelo Ngwenya said the tunnel would help improve the capacity for water-borne sewerage for areas such as Haven Hills, Duncan Village, Summerpride, Morningside, Buffalo Flats and Scenery Park.

He said the tunnel would also bring relief to the Amalinda suburb and Wilsonia as well as its industrial zone.

More details of the project were contained in the metro’s 2015-16 IDP document, which stated that sewerage systems in the city were well beyond their designed lives, and were “in poor condition and are operating at capacity”.

The report noted that the situation was holding back housing development and threatening the environment. It noted that Laing Dam, which supplies BCM with water, had been hit twice by spillages, while sewage ponds at Breidbach were so severely overloaded that they were spilling non-chlorinated effluent into the Buffalo River above Laing Dam.

The report stated that: “Water treatment plants serving BCM are [operating] at near capacity for the entire municipality.”

Ngwenya said the new 3.5km tunnel would be laid 35m underground and would be three metres in diameter. It will link the Amalinda-based central waste water treatment works plant with the Reeston treatment works.

He said bid evaluation officials were busy identifying the suitable company to do the job.

This comes after BCM municipal manager Andile Sihlahla published the tender in local media in June, and invited the would-be bidders to a briefing session at the Robbie de Lange Hall in West Bank on July 5.

The announcement comes two months after mayor Xola Pakati launched the revamp of another water treatment works, the main Umzonyana WTW near Wilsonia, a project into which the metro injected R320-million.

Ngwenya said: “It will take two years to construct the tunnel after the tender is awarded and this will open up the areas listed above for industrial, warehousing and housing development, which will also help in the creation of much-needed jobs.”