Paulpietersburg puts plans in motion to ensure water supply in the short and long term

Ronnie Gevers writes:

Early last year the drought really started to affect all of us here in eDumbe.

I, together with businesses in town and other stakeholders, had to put our heads together to think of plans that could be made to survive the shortage of water and to combat the drought.

As early as November 2014, we had meetings with ZDM (Zululand District Muncipality), which is responsible for water in the eDumbe area, to discuss water challenges.

These meetings led to very little to no actions from ZDM.

The water crisis was also never discussed on the agenda of council meetings.

After many efforts and requests to establish a water crisis forum, the forum was eventually established in mid December 2015.

I was elected, along with four other councilors, onto this forum together with Mr Heinz Hambrock, who is a resident of Ward 3.

The council elected me as convener for this forum.

Since January 2016, we had various meetings with ZDM, Cogta, DWS (Department of water and Sanitation) and other role players.

Myself, Mzo Khanyisile and Mr Hambrock are attending weekly meetings in Ulundi at a JOC meeting (Joint Operation Committee) where we were asked to present our short term and long term plan for eDumbe.

Our plan was accepted by ZDM and DWS. Short term plans include the drilling of six boreholes in addition to the one borehole in Wolmarans Street.

The suction area at the dam has to be reconstructed and the overflow of the dam has to be repaired.

In addition to the boreholes, Coca-Cola has made 90 000 litres of clean drinking water available to our town and eDumbe.

This water is collected by ZDM from Valpre and delivered to eDumbe tanks and businesses in town.

With the additional borehole and Valpre water, we should be able to meet the short term demand which we estimated at +- 650kl per day.

For the long term, the lifting of the dam wall is being investigated along with a project to pump water from the Pongola River to the water treatment plant.

A desktop business plan has been presented at the meeting and is now in the next planning stage with the consulting engineers.

This plan is long term, and the availability of funds is a major challenge. The Democratic Alliance in eDumbe is making all efforts to ensure that there is water available for all in the short and long term.

Weather predictions indicate that it’s not looking good for rain for the next seven months.

We have to stay positive and pray that our water resources do last and that we will get good rain soon.

Please contact me at 082 945 7447 for any information and positive proposals.

Once again, we ask everyone to use water sparingly

Private borehole owners are also requested to use the water only for their households, because the contractor who is responsible to equip two boreholes, one at the silo’s and another at the soccer field in eDumbe, assured me that both pumps will be pumping by Friday, April 22.

Our underground water is under severe pressure.

We don’t know how long this precious resource will last.