MBOMBELA – Sembcorp Silulumanzi still boasts some of the best water-management systems in the country and was recently again presented with a Green Drop Award for its sewage works treatment. The company which manages a concession within Mbombela Local Municipality, supplies virtually the entire Mbombela with drinking water and sanitation services.
In the most recent process assessment, the national Department of Water and Sanitation honoured it for its Matsulu and KaNyamazane treatment systems. This award is the cousin of the better-known Blue Drop Award for drinking water, for compliance with certain set standards.
Ms Yolanda Oosthuizen, senior manager of scientific services of the company, explained that its Kingstonvale plant in Mbombela missed out on the certification with 0,39 per cent, since it was not designed to achieve the newly introduced specialised standards at the time of evaluation. This has changed, with Sembcorp having added a return-reactivated sludge plant last year.
“It is more compact and efficient,” Oosthuizen explained on a tour of Kingstonvale. After being filtered through screens to remove
bio-hazardous waste (cutlery is not an uncommon find) and sand from the waste, the water is divided into two streams for cleaning.
The older system boasts a new polishing plant where water already cleaned by the primary settling tanks of separation and biofilters, also have sludge returned to the water for the purifying bacteria to feed on in order to do their work of removing ammonia from the water. The new pump-driven plant does the same, but faster. A chemical is added to the water to remove phosphates and a last separation of all solid matter takes place.
The final step is adding chlorine to purify the water before returning the effluent to the river. The quality of the resulting water is but
one of the aspects measured by the certification, which evaluates the entire management system including plant licences, staff, maintenance and asset management. “Quality plays a big part, as does compliance with municipal bylaws,” Oosthuizen explained, adding that they are appealing against Kingstonvale missing out on the drop for 2013.
“Sembcorp Silulumanzi is proud to have proved that we use the best practices when it comes to water and waste water purification. The Blue Drop and Green Drop awards confirm that the qualifying towns’ drinking water quality and waste water treatment are being managed according to excellent world-class standards,” she concluded.
