Water is no longer being extracted from the Impofu Dam as levels are too low to use the dam barge.
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality spokesperson, Mthubanzi Mniki, said that the NMBM shut down water supply from the Impofu and Churchill Dams on Wednesday to carry out critical repairs. The repairs were completed and the treatment works restarted.
However, when maintenance teams inspected the levels of the Impofu Dam, they discovered that water levels are too low to let the pumps on the barge operate any longer.
The barge has thus been switched off and decommissioned.
“This solution of a barge was implemented since the dam levels were at 16%. The dam level has now dropped to a point where the barge is almost at the bottom of the dam basin, meaning that it is at risk of being damaged by drawing up sediment,” Mniki explained.
“This immediately leaves the NMBM with a water deficit of about 28 Megaliters per day,” he said.
Mniki added that even with the restarting of the Churchill Water Treatment works, the demand of water remains very high and therefore the recovery will be extended.
“As an interim measure the NMBM is taking more water from the Kouga – Loerie System to make up the deficit, but this can only be done on the short term. In order to make the water in the Churchill Dam go the furthest, all water users must reduce water consumption urgently.
“Currently, the demand outweighs the supply and the systems are taking long to recover. It is therefore critical that water is only used for essential purposes, like cooking, drinking and washing. Please refrain from activities like washing a vehicle, irrigation, cleaning of roofs and paving with high pressures water machines and any other high water usage exercise,” he pleaded.
“It is anticipated that the time to for the system to recover will take at least another 48 hours,” Mniki said last night, June 10.
Water trucks will be deployed to the affected areas.
