Council to cut back abstraction

Norton Town Council has admitted discharging 10 million litres of raw sewer into the lake near Harare’s raw water abstraction point.
Harare residents will not have adequate water this week as production has been reduced by half.

Harare and its surrounding towns of Chitungwiza, Ruwa, Norton and Epworth require 1 200 million litres a day. Whittling supplies to around 311 million litres means only a few residents have access to water.

More so up to 45 percent of the treated water is lost either through leaks or thefts. This implies that very little of the 311 million litres reaches the people. Harare Water director Engineer Christopher Zvobgo explained the city’s water shortages yesterday indicating that depressed supplies will continue this week.

“Our raw water quality is bad. Normally we get 70 percent of our raw water from Lake Manyame. But because Norton is discharging its raw sewer into the lake we have had to cut back on the amount of raw water we abstract,” said Eng Zvobgo.
He said the city has been forced to revert to the equally heavily polluted Lake Chivero, which is downstream Lake Manyame.