eThekwini allocates R580m towards water project

Neil Macleod, head of eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS), has confirmed that construction of the second phase of the Western Aqueduct was already well underway. Cycad Pipelines, which was awarded the first contract for the 7km stretch between Inchanga Station and Alverstone Neck in March, has already cleared some of the pipeline corridor and has begun to excavate trenches near Inchanga Station.

Project manager Martin Bright confirmed that the second contract for the segment of the pipeline that begins at Alverstone Nek and continues to Ashley Drive in Hillcrest, was awarded to local company WK SA Construction. Construction is expected to begin within the next month.

Project unbundled

An additional contract along the 55km pipeline route, which stretches from Inchanga Station to Ntuzuma, is expected to be awarded shortly. This means that the full length of the main spine of the Western Aqueduct will be under construction by next year.

The first phase of the Western Aqueduct which covered 19km from Umlaas Road to Inchanga Station was commissioned in June 2011. The second phase of Durban's largest ever water pipeline project has been dogged by unavoidable delays. As a result, at the beginning of 2013, EWS decided to unbundle the mega project into individual contracts that would be rolled out over a seven-year period. The release of additional funds will accelerate this, allowing the pipeline to be completed as early as 2017.

Bright said that additional funding has enabled EWS to link the next two contracts together so that the pipeline reaching from Ashley Drive all the way to NR5 Reservoir at Ntuzuma could be completed in one. The tender for this contract as well as one for a 20 mega litre break pressure tank at Ashley Drive are expected to be awarded during the last quarter of 2013.

Critical for development

Macleod said that this infrastructure was now critical for further development of Durban to the west or the north west. Critical projects such as the Dube Tradeport and Cornubia were being held back by a lack of water.

The second phase of the Western Aqueduct is expected to significantly strengthen the capacity of bulk water supply to the western regions of eThekwini, injecting up to 400Ml/day. It will also feed into the urgently needed Northern Aqueduct. This is expected to get underway at the beginning of next year.

"We have enough water to meet the current demand but we don't have the infrastructure to deliver it to where it is needed. We don't have the network capacity to supply water," he explained.

Currently, water outages in areas as such as Ntuzuma and Inanda are common and EWS will be purchasing an additional 30 tankers to ferry water to these areas. Macleod has warned that Durban's water situation was tenuous with demand outstripping supply which meant that the city was in danger of water restrictions following the slightest dip in rainfall.