The Moregrove Wellfields Borehole Project, which cost the municipality more than R50 million, has officially been launched and will lead to an additional 4ML of water per day being made available to Nelson Mandela Bay residents.
This amount will increase to approximately 25ML per day as soon as all boreholes, including Coegakop, become active by the start of the New Year.
During the opening of the sites in Mount Croix, the metro’s water and sanitation director, Barry Martin, said that it is an extremely proud moment for his department since this is the first of the projects that they started about 10 years ago, when they first explored the possibility of using borehole water during the 2009-2011 drought.
“These are big boreholes and they are very deep. There is also a considerable amount of money that went into the development of these boreholes,” he said.
He explained that four sites were identified through a study, one being the Moregrove site, consisting of three locations: the Fort Nottingham Reservoir, the Fairview Reservoir and the Glendinningvale Reservoir.
The other sites include St George’s Park, Bushy Park and Coegakop.
“All of these coming together will give us about give and take, 25ML of water per day collectively, come January next year, when all of them are anticipated to be done.
“We have also started with exploratory drilling at Churchill Dam where we hope to get more water and put that into the dam, improving the yield of the dam,” he said.
Martin added that the benefit of these projects for the community is 15-17ML per day that the metro could receive from Moregrove, St George’s Park and Bushy Park, alone.
“Our drought allocation out of the Krom River at the moment is 30ML per day, so come January next year, we will virtually have 50% more water available but I don’t want to say that too loudly because people may think that the drought is over.”
He added that this was a very proud moment because they coulld now say that groundwater can be sustainably used in the long run. They also drilled monitoring holes at each borehole site to monitor the underground water level to establish how much they are taking out of the earth.
This allows them to see if it any point their actions are having a negative effect on the water table.
“Our ultimate goal with groundwater is to get to 50ML per day. We already have the plan and study document for where we are going next within the metro. It is not area-specific, but where the water is. The geology or underground rock formations will determine where that will be.”
Project engineer, Matthew Hills, said that the plan with the 11 boreholes is to take groundwater from the aquifers, treat and disinfect the water to make it safe for human consumption then put that water into the three reservoirs. By doing so, they will be saving on the amount of surface water from the local dams that is needed to normally fill these reservoirs.
“We are cross-subsidising essentially. We are saving what little we have left in the dams and supplementing it with groundwater,” he explained.
He added that the three reservoirs mainly supply areas such as North End, Deal Party, Sidwell, Korsten and New Brighton, areas essential to the heartbeat of the Bay, the commercial areas.
“These are the areas that were at an exceptionally high risk of going dry and we hope that by bringing this, we are increasing the resilience of our system, increasing the reliability of supply and ensuring that the economy is affected as little as possible by the drought that we are currently experiencing,” Hills said.
Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor, Retief Odendaal, who also attended the launch, said that the metro is still grappling with a very intense drought and these augmenting projects are very important for a sustainable water supply in Nelson Mandela Bay.
“We have to ensure water security if we are to survive as citizens, and if we want to attract investment and create sustainable jobs in our city. We are currently faced with a huge risk, because no business will invest in a city where there is no water security,” he said.
