Water crisis a three-fold issue

Finite supply, infrastructure, consumption the problems

My challenge for you is to save 25% of your current water bill. It’s up to us

Water has been an issue in Ndlambe for a long time, and independent water consultant for the municipality, Justin Wilmot, explained the problems associated with supplying water to the area at the combined Port Alfred Business Forum and Sunshine Coast Tourism meeting that took place at the Royal Port Alfred Golf Club last Thursday.

Wilmot gave the worst-case scenario if residents did not restrict their water consumption, but also pointed out economical ways that the current situation could be rectified – solutions he has presented to Ndlambe Municipality, Amatola Water and other parties.

“When it comes to water there are really only three issues; supply – including quality, delivery/infrastructure and consumption,” Wilmot told an audience of about 60 people.

The flow of the Kowie River to the Ndlambe area begins in Makhanda (Grahamstown), and then makes a long trip through a number of weirs and dams before it reaches Waters Meeting, where the Sarel Hayward Dam is located as a storage facility.

Water is pumped to the balancing dam (that holds around 65 mega litres).

At this point there are two choices; excess water is kept and stored in the balancing dam where it settles before being pumped to the treatment works and into the reticulation system, or, when there is a shortage, the balancing dam is bypassed and the water flows straight to the treatment works in Nemato.

Even with recent rains, and the water flowing down from the Belmont, it still needs to fill every single weir and dam in its path before it gets to the weir at the very top of the Kowie River.

When there is excess it gets pumped back to the Sarel Hayward Dam, while the bulk is pumped to Port Alfred through an asbestos cement pipe.

“[Last year] saw drought, infrastructure challenges and power outages [all] eroding our backup supplies,” Wilmot said.

“At capacity, the balancing dam can hold about 15 days of water.

“Breakdowns have been happening for years, but we no longer have a buffer, so feel every one of them.”

When there was a breakdown it was often necessary to switch the entire system down as, Wilmot explained, there was no way to isolate specific areas.

Now that there are new valves at the Royal Alfred Marina it is possible to isolate certain areas.

High-lying areas are the first to be affected. He said when the water was switched back on, the water hammer effect could break pipe joints and even burst pipes.

Valves require air release valves that would allow trapped air to escape from the system – the only other way to release the air was by turning on the fire hydrants.

Wilmot said Kentonon-Sea relied exclusively on Eskom to provide electricity for its reverse osmosis system, as it did not have an equivalent of the Sarel Hayward Dam.

Water is drawn from sea-wells and mixed with dune-well water.

At the end of October 2018, a meeting was called between Amatola Water, Ndlambe Municipality, the Kenton-on-Sea Ratepayers Aassociation (Kosra), tourism and business to explain the challenges residents faced. A few rules were established at the meeting, the main being that all information should be made completely transparent, good or bad, and a WhatsApp group was established to aid information flow.

With a full reservoir, Kenton only has two days of water in reserve.

“We have a finite supply of water, we have some infrastructural problems and there is excessive consumption.

“As long as Grahamstown [Makhanda] has a problem, we have a problem.”

The Sarel Hayward Dam holds about a year’s reserve but, when it is not being replenished, the water at the bottom of the dam that contains all the “good stuff” gets pumped directly to the water treatment works and is the reason for the smelly water.

The recently released Amegwevu report for Bathurst (which is probably going to be rolled out throughout the Eastern Cape) had several “options” for water reticulation and bulk water supply, but should be treated carefully as the wrong decision could cost residents dearly in the future, Wilmot said.

He explained several of the options in the report – all had some disadvantages as well as advantages.

He suggested a non-political committee needed to be established to look into the matter including former and retired experts in the field.

Wilmot said total buy-in from the community was also required.

If the process was to be transparent, then people would also need to be more forgiving of mistakes made either in the past or the present.

Wilmot said there were short- (Christmas 2019), medium (Christmas 2020) and long-term solutions required.

Another solution was for people to install more storage tanks to reduce dependence on the system.

He said if Port Alfred residents collectively could save just 500,000l per day (less than 10% of Port Alfred’s daily consumption) it could be redirected to the balancing dam (which is currently being cleaned in preparation), the filling of which would take 130 days to achieve.

When this is full, excess water will bypass the balancing dam and be pumped directly to the Sarel Hayward dam.

“If we start in May, the balancing dam will be full by spring.

“This will give us 15 days backup. If not, we will have a bleak Christmas.

“My challenge for you is to save 25% of your current water bill. It’s up to us.”