The Biggarsberg Water Treatment plant is set to be upgraded at long last. The plant, which treats bulk water supplied to the Endumeni area, has not been refurbished in years despite the population doubling to nearly 60 000 over the past 25 years, according to the South African Census Board.

Lethuxolo Mthembu, acting Municipal Manager of Umzinyathi District Municipality, said the tender notice was published last week.

“The inability of the plant to meet the demand, coupled with load-shedding that knocks out the pumping station at Tayside, has again forced [us] to unfortunately implement water-shedding,” he told the Courier. “As the water services provider, we have taken steps to ease this crisis by upgrading the plant.”

According to correspondence, the capacity of the works is to be upgraded to ensure supply can meet demand.

Four weeks ago, Umzinyathi District Municipality announced the end of daytime water-shedding following good summer rains. Lowering pressure to preserve water leaves the high-lying areas with no water however, from around 9am to 5pm and even later.

Mr Mthembu said that with the return of load-shedding in the area served by Tayside, the water supply was compromised for up to six hours: “The power is off for two hours and it takes up to four hours to replenish water supplies, to the extent that we are able to supply households again.”

He said steps were in place to install generators, to keep the pump station running during power outrages, but admitted that ageing infrastructure leading to constant breaks in the pipelines throughout the Umzinyathi area, has made the job of ensuring a reliable water supply ‘extremely challenging’ even without load-shedding.

The policy was now to try and ease ‘water blues’ by lowering pressure on a one day off, one day on basis, which will affect all parts of the Endumeni municipal area save for low-lying parts, which will receive water albeit at a lower pressure.

Nquthu had to endure constant water outages, with the Vant’s Drift Treatment Works built in 1968 and not upgraded since.

“We all know how Nquthu town has developed so quickly and the population grown, yet the plant can only process 11 megalitres a day. Once this is upgraded, we hope to increase that capacity to 17 megalitres.”

In Msinga, a new water treatment works to be built at a cost of R5,2-million two years ago, has not yet been commissioned. Mr Mthembu explained challenges faced by Eskom meant the works could not yet be connected to the power grid.

“This would have provided five megalitres a day to Tugela Ferry and Pomeroy, but we are unable to use the plant.”

He added that a fleet of 26 tankers were being dispatched to rural areas to provide water.

“Previously, this was done by a private contractor at a cost of R5,6-million a month. Mayor [Petros] Ngubane realised this was ‘chucking money away’ so we bought our own fleet of 20 tankers (we already had six) and are spending just over R1,9-million a month paying off the trucks. Once the fleet has been paid off, the savings will be massive.”

He added that contractors supplying generators to borehole pumps at exorbitant prices, had cost the district ‘millions in wasteful expenditure’.

“We are taking steps to cut all these costs and plough the money back into more significant projects, to fight poverty in our area, which is one of the poorest in the country.”

Asked about the water billing system, which for months has left Endumeni residents perplexed by incorrect names, addresses and water readings, Chief Financial Officer, Ntombenhle Mkhwanazi admitted there had been problems since a new financial system was implemented in July last year.

“There was a private company doing the meter reading, printing and sending out the bills, and there were many problems with wrong addresses and wrong amounts being inputted. We have now cancelled their contract and we are doing it internally. The system has been cleansed and we hope that there will be no more problems.”

This will reportedly help to ease the congestion when it comes to issuing water clearance certificates, when a property is transferred to a new owner. A transaction cannot go through without the certificate. Ms Mkhwanazi added residents should also monitor any leaks after the water meters, which are the responsibility of the home owner.

“Leaks before the water meter are the district municipality’s [responsibility]. We will also be phasing in the installation of new water meters throughout the area to ensure correct billing. In cases where our meter readers cannot access a meter, estimates have been done, so when the new meters are in place, any adjustments will be put in place.”

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