NMBM opens another groundwater supply project to mitigate water disruptions
Published: March 14, 2023<< BACK TO NEWS
The Nelson Mandela Bay
Municipality’s R46million ground water supply project at the St George’s Park has
been successfully completed and commissioned, giving much needed reprieve to
the depleting local dams that supply water to the Port of Port Elizabeth, Central
and Humewood amongst other areas.
The project, which
commenced from July 2021, is one of the Municipality’s water augmentation
projects, which seek to ensure that Nelson Mandela Bay does not run out of
water.
With a total of four
boreholes constructed, the St George’s Park Wellfield construction work
included:
·
Construction
of a treatment works and discharge pipework
·
Construction
of a pump station and a pressurized pipeline
·
Installation
of mechanical, electrical, and electronic equipment
·
Installation
of a collector pipeline to convey groundwater to a centralized point
·
Bulk
earthworks and trenching
·
Tie
into existing NMBM bulk water network, and.
·
Commissioning
of groundwater monitoring system.
During the official
opening of the Wellfield, NMBM Deputy Executive Mayor, Cllr Mkhuseli Jack,
said: "The Municipality is doing all it can to ensure that we maximise all our
resources as we continue to face a dire situation of no rainfall. While we
continue to do our part, we need all our residents to work with us and play
their part. We can not win this battle we are faced with alone. We opened the
first boreholes project in November last year, this site is our second one and
we still have two more sites we will commission later this year.”
"We are really doing
our best to make sure that residents and businesses have water supplied to
them. We will be receiving an average of 2.1 million litres of water from this
site alone. The water is treated and safe to drink. Not only will this site
supply the areas that are serviced by the St George’s Park reservoir, but
through the constructed pump station the Wellfield will feed other reservoirs
connected to the Churchill pipeline.”
As at 14 March 2023, major
storage dams supplying the Metro are as follows:
Kouga
Dam
13.16 %
Churchill
Dam
25.45 %
Impofu
Dam
6.91%
Loerie
Dam
46.60 %
Groendal
Dam
14.63 %
TOTAL
12.77 %.
As the Municipality continues to urge residents and
businesses to drastically reduce water consumption, Drought Crisis Public meetings
commenced from 9 March to 5 April 2023. Residents are encouraged to attend these
sessions as Executive Mayor, Cllr Retief Odendaal, his Mayoral Committee
members and top Infrastructure and Engineering officials will answer burning
questions concerning the drought crisis.
Ends.
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