Kouga municipality has managed to reduce its 70% water dependence on Nelson Mandela Bay and the Gamtoos Irrigation Board, which manages the Kouga Dam, by constructing the biggest combined processing plants in Africa for water contaminated with iron and manganese.
The municipality is now producing about 60% of its own water from four recently constructed treatment plants built using funds from the department of water and sanitation, which made available R57.4m to avert day zero in the water-scarce area.
It plans to increase its water production to 70%, which requires additional boreholes to be dug.
The Jeffreys Bay and Humansdorp plants have a 6ML capacity each, while the Hankey and St Francis Bay plants each have a 4ML capacity.
Dubbed new age water treatment plants, the facilities — built by International Metal Processing (IMP) — are equipped with filter media made of crushed glass instead of sand, a system which does not allow clogging and the growth of bacteria.
This means no chemicals are used to treat the water other than chlorine, which is added after processing, as required by law.
Speaking in Jeffreys Bay on Tuesday, water and sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu said he was impressed by how well the money had been spent by the municipality.
“I’ve been informed about how the old and new plants in Jeffreys Bay have been combined to provide water supply closer to the demand.”
Mchunu said though he was happy with the capacity of the plants, the municipality needed to ensure that sufficient underground water was harvested to be processed.
“This means more boreholes need to be drilled so we can maximise the usage of these facilities.
“Our main target is to meet and surpass the consumption demand,” he said.
“It’s good that Kouga wants [to reduce its] 70% dependence [on] the [Bay] metro’s water system because, in the case of a serious drought, pressure will be relieved for the metro, while Kouga is able to draw and process groundwater here.”
Water restrictions were imposed in Kouga and Nelson Mandela Bay when dams started drying up.
Mchunu said he intended engaging with the Kouga municipality on Tuesday about loosening some restrictions, while leaving the more stringent ones in place to ensure security of supply.
Project manager Willem Hofmeyr said Kouga traditionally received 70% of its water from the systems managed by the metro and Gamtoos board.
When water was depleted last year, the Bay began reducing supply to the area.
“This meant the majority of areas in Kouga would not have water.
“We approached the water and sanitation department and we were informed in July last year that funds would be made available.
“We started in September and had six months to use the R57.4m provided to us.”
Hofmeyr said the municipality had existing boreholes in different areas whose water could not be used for human consumption due to its high iron and manganese content.
“We hired IMP, which erected a pilot plant and showed us how they processed the contaminated water from the boreholes into clean drinking water without using chemicals,” he said.
“We were impressed with their work and constructed four of the plants in our coastal towns.”
He said the municipality’s target was to produce 70% of its own water.
“We don’t want to be fully self-sustainable because during the holiday seasons, the water demand goes up quite a lot, especially in Jeffreys Bay, and in that instance, we will need the metro to assist because during that same period, industries are closed in the metro which means there’s enough water to supply to us.”
Kouga mayor Hattingh Bornman said all four plants were fully functional and the main issue now was getting more boreholes drilled.
“We are grateful for the funding received from the department and we have applied for additional funds.
“We hope that based on the good work we’ve done the minister will have faith in us since we’ve spent the money as we were supposed to and were not reckless with it.”
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