BCC suspends water-shedding programme

THE Bulawayo City Council has suspended its proposed water-shedding programme before implementation.

The council said it had suspended water-shedding, which was supposed to start yesterday, following heavy rains that pounded the city and its surrounding areas over the weekend.
In an interview yesterday, the city's Director of Engineering Services, Engineer Simela Dube, said the programme would be slightly delayed while inflows into the supply dams were being assessed.

On Friday, the city council had announced that it would cut water supplies twice a week in all the city's suburbs between 7.30am and 3.30pm.
Only the industrial sites and the Central Business District (CBD) would be exempted from the water-shedding regime.

According to a schedule that was released by the local authority, Nkulumane, Emganwini, Nketa, Pumula, Sizinda, Tshabalala, Bellevue, Newton West, Southwold, and West Somerton, would experience water-shedding on Mondays and Thursdays.

Suburbs such as Cowdray Park, Luveve, Magwegwe, Njube, Entumbane, Emakhandeni, Barbourfields, Mzilikazi, Nguboyenja, Mpopoma, Makokoba, Lobengula, Pelandaba and Matshobane, would have faced water cuts on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
As for the eastern suburbs, they were supposed to have water cuts on Thursdays and Fridays.

In a statement on Friday, the town clerk, Mr Middleton Nyoni, had said the water supply situation had reached crisis proportions.

However, commenting on the suspension of the programme yesterday, Eng Dube said the programme could be suspended indefinitely, if rains continued falling and residents reduced their daily average consumption rates.

"Water-shedding is an unpleasant measure of last resort. Council only implements it at times of extreme crisis when there is no other alternative to save water. It has many disadvantages that include inconvenience to residents and damage to the water reticulation infrastructure in the city," said Eng Dube.

He said during times of water-shedding, the sewage system starts backfiring as less water goes into it and sewer pipe bursts become the order of the day.

He said Bulawayo's water pipes were old and the air that would be introduced into them when water-shedding is implemented could result in frequent bursts.

"It is for these and other reasons that we have decided to put the programme on hold until we assess the inflows and determine that it really is the last resort," said Eng Dube.

He appealed to residents to conserve water to delay the "necessity" to water-shed.
"Despite repeated appeals for residents to use water sparingly the average daily consumption rate keeps going up. The situation will be re-assessed as soon as the inflow figures have been received and we will get back to residents," said Eng Dube.
The latest council report shows that the average daily water usage rate has risen to 151 486 cubic metres, from about 142 000 last month.

The report also states that following the decommissioning of Upper Ncema Dam on 5 September, the city's demands had to be met by increased abstraction of water from Umzingwane by pumping.

The report showed that the pumping would result in the premature depletion of the dam.
"Umzingwane Dam being the only supply dam where abstraction could be increased by pumping, has always been used in Bulawayo's water supply strategy as a buffer dam and hence depletion of this dam would leave the city in a precarious position," read the report.