BCC to review water shedding schedule

THE Bulawayo City Council is on Tuesday expected to further ease its water shedding schedule with the local authority expected to commission two major rehabilitation projects by tomorrow.

Bulawayo is going through a 96-hour water shedding schedule after the city's supply dams received significant inflows with the local authority revealing that the water is enough for the city until the next rainy season.

Council corporate communications manager Mrs Nesisa Mpofu revealed that rehabilitation works of Criterion Water Works and the Ncema/Fernhill booster pumps were progressing well, with final works being completed yesterday.

She said the Mayor, Councillor Solomon Mguni will be giving a statement on the water shedding schedule on Tuesday after the commissioning of the two projects.

"The rehabilitation of KSB Pumps at Ncema and Fernhill is also progressing well towards a full commissioning of the Flowserve Pumps. Any delays due to the movement of cargo (new check-valves) caused by Covid-19 regulations is being taken into account and the team is assessing if there is a need for any extra days which will be communicated if need be.
"His Worship the Mayor in a statement released on 5 February 2021 advised that the City of Bulawayo resolved for the progressive rolling out of the water restoration strategy against the available raw water and available pumping. It should be noted that we expect a review of the water shedding programme on 16 March 2021," said Mrs Mpofu.

She said with the commissioning of the two major projects the city will be able to deliver between 170 and 180 megalitres of water a day, enough to supply the city without any need for water shedding.

Under the rehabilitation of the KSB pump stations at Fernhill and Ncema the council spokesperson revealed that the project entailed the replacement of the KSB pump sets together with the associated suction and discharge pipework, soft starters complete with power factor correction units and a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system which will both control and monitor the new equipment locally and remotely from Criterion Water Works.

"The new pumps are meant to pump water from the city's water supply dams, via one of the two raw water pipelines to Criterion water treatment works where the raw water is treated before gravitating to the service reservoirs within the city.

"There are three pumps at each pump station (Ncema and Fernhill), two of which will work in tandem as the duty pumps and one pump will be on standby. Each pump has the capacity to deliver 1 890 cubic metres per hour. Hence over a 24-hour period the two pumps can deliver a theoretical 90 720 cubic meters or 90, 7 megalitres improving the city's pumping capacity," said Mrs Mpofu.

She said at Criterion water treatment works, council was installing new plant inlet valves, raw water reservoir outlet valves, actuator valves, air piping system, backwash pumps, recycling pumps, upgraded chemical dosing system, instrumentation monitoring, electrical control switchgear for the entire plant and the automation of the backwashing system of the filters.

"The contractor is currently finalising the outstanding works at the plant which include the installation of inlet and outlet flow meters and replacing of backwash valves," she said