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decommissioned at the weekend.
This came out when the city council met stakeholders to select members for a water crisis committee in the council chambers yesterday.
The city has tightened water rationing and introduced a water shedding schedule that will see residential areas going for 24 hours without water, twice a week, in a bid to stretch out supplies until the next rainy season.
Speaking at the meeting, the city’s Director of Engineering Services, Engineer Simela Dube, said the water crisis was set to worsen, as Umzingwane Dam was likely to be decommissioned at the weekend.
“This will leave the city relying on three dams — Insiza, Lower Ncema and Inyankuni. Upper Ncema was decommissioned in March. This means that the 90 000 cubic metres available in the city has to be shared carefully among people who need 140 000 cubic metres. That is why we have embarked on water shedding and tightened water rationing,” said Eng Dube.
He said residents could utilise boreholes but warned that borehole water was contaminated and should always be boiled before use.
Eng Dube said even if the Mtshabezi pipeline was to be completed this year, it would only supply an additional 17 000 cubic metres of water per day.
He said the water-shedding regime would increase the frequency of pipe bursts, which he said could lead to some areas going more than 24 hours without water.
“We urge residents to urgently report pipe bursts so that we minimise the loss of purified water and the time affected areas are without supplies. Seven bowsers are on standby to service areas that will be affected by pipe bursts,” said Eng Dube.
He said the city’s supply dams held about 43 percent of their combined capacity, with about 86 percent of the water contained in Insiza Dam.
“If people do not exceed their water allocations, the water we have is likely to last about six months. However, if residents abuse water, we might have to increase the duration of shedding. In 2007 we almost had a situation whereby supplies would have been available once every week,” said Eng Dube.
He said the water that was being extracted from Insiza was only 17 000 cubic metres a day but it could be increased to about 67 000 cubic metres if another pipeline was constructed to draw water from the dam.
“We completed the feasibility study for the Insiza pipeline duplication and sent proposals to the Ministry of Water Resources, Management and Development so that we could get funding for the project. However, we are yet to get a response,” he said.
Speaking at the same occasion, the Town Clerk, Mr Middleton Nyoni, appealed to residents to conserve water and pray hard for a normal rainy season.
“We must spread the message of water conservation to everyone. The rainy season that we are banking on is uncertain. We therefore need to avoid a situation where water will completely run out and the city is declared a disaster area. In such a case, we would have to commandeer all the boreholes in the city, even private ones so that everyone gets water,” said Mr Nyoni.
The Deputy Mayor, Clr Amen Mpofu, urged residents not to hoard water.
“If people keep more water than they need, they will throw it away to get fresh water when supplies are restored. This would defeat the purpose of shedding and deepen the crisis as people would be actually using more,” said Clr Mpofu.
A representative of the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) said abstraction from Nyamandlovu Aquifer could be increased if Zesa was to exempt Cowdray Park from load shedding.
“We have never pumped water for more than eight hours in a day because the pump station that receives the water at Cowdray Park is always under load shedding. If the suburb were to be exempted or a special line that is not subjected to load shedding is set aside for the pump station, we could significantly increase abstraction from the aquifer,” said the Zinwa representative.
There was no one from Zesa to respond to questions.
Stakeholders selected members for four committees that would oversee the rationing and shedding programmes.
Four sub-committees made up of different representatives of organisations that include banks, the police, the army, business community, residents associations, academics, civil servants and the media were set up.
The committees are information dissemination, resource mobilisation, monitoring and compliance as well as advocacy.
The committees will also be responsible for material and financial contribution as well as expertise and recommendation of possible solutions towards the management of the crisis.
Water shedding is set to start tomorrow with eastern suburbs being cut off from 7.30am to 7.30am the next day.
The Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, in delivering his Mid-Term Budget Review Statement last week, said the Mtshabezi pipeline, viewed as the short-term solution to the city’s water problems, would be completed in September.
The Mtshabezi Dam, which has been lying idle since 1994, has a capacity of about 52,2 million cubic metres.
The Minister of Water Resources, Management and Development, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo said the NMZWP viewed as the permanent solution, which has been on the drawing board since 1912, would be completed in three years time.
The city is said to be operating with a deficit of about four dams, as an additional supply dam is supposed to be constructed after every 10 years.
The last supply dam to be constructed and used by the city was Insiza in 1976.
Water rationing has been in place since 2005.
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