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Vusumuzi Dube and Tendai Bhebe, Sunday News Reporters
THE Bulawayo City Council is working on rehabilitating three waste water treatment plants that have not been operational for some time as they try to address their raw effluent discharge which has been attracting penalties from the Environment Management Authority (EMA).
The local authority’s sewer treatment works have over the past few years been placed under the red EMA condemned zone. This has seen the local authority clashing with EMA, with the environment regulator penalising council and giving them an ultimatum over the high pollution levels.
However, in an interview on the sidelines of a level benchmarking peer review site tour in Bulawayo last Wednesday, the city’s deputy director of engineering services, Engineer Sikhumbuzo Ncube, said while the sewer systems have not been working properly for years, plans were already in place to rehabilitate the plants.
“These haven’t been working properly in recent years resulting in some of the effluent that passed through them getting discharged into the environment without being treated. The council identified six plants in the city namely Aisleby 1 and 2, SAST 1 and 2, Thorngrove, and Luveve Treatment Works that need urgent rehabilitation but we are currently focusing on Aisleby 1 and 2,” said Eng Ncube.
The deputy director said with the rehabilitation they hoped to improve their sewer treatment capabilities.
He noted that the project was the last phase of an ongoing process to resuscitate all the city’s wastewater treatment facilities.
“When we started in 2016 the contract was valued at US$4.8 million now with the new price escalations we have wrote a new application cost of RTGS$48.1 million but we have spent close to US$3.2 million as of today. We are about 70 percent complete and the 30 percent is basically mechanical which we are to do as soon as possible.
“Our targeted date of commission is August this year. The gates which we will use to open and close are all manual but the quality is stainless steel so we should have these not collapsing in the next 15 to 30 years,” said Eng Ncube.
Eng Ncube said vulnerability to waterborne diseases would be reduced in the city, adding that the city’s ecosystem would be preserved, leading to increased bio-diversity and balanced life.
He said the purified discharge from the plants would ensure increased agricultural productivity downstream.
“The rehabilitation will enable a higher quality of effluent to be discharged into the river hence reduce the mortality of aquatic life. The rehabilitated plants will drastically reduce discharge of raw sewage into the river thereby increasing agricultural productivity downstream
The Aisleby plant caters for waste that comes from the low-density areas, the Central Business District and the industrial areas, while the one at Thorngrove covers a number of the city’s high-density suburbs.
He said the biggest challenge to completing the project was getting forex but the city had already managed to buy all the required equipment.
Bongani Ndlovu