Water trucks to top up Sedgefield reservoirs

[Albereth]

eNews had one of the previous mayors of Knysna making a comment that the buildign of a dam had been on the budget some years ago - and then it was removed. She didn't indicate why.

 

[Albereth]

A forumite from another forum asked the question do the Golfing Estates take water from the Municipal supply ? I think not, but they do lower the water table meaning less or no water to pump out the boreholes. George, Knysna & Mossel Bay, Plett are surrounded by golfing estates, maybe gboy knows more about how Simola, Pezula get their water. Do Pezula not pump from the Knoetzie River ?

I am not sure what golfing estate there is supposed to be in Sedgefield. AFAIK there is a small driving range/9 hole place near the Swartvlei. I don't know where you'd find flatish ground there for a golf course. I also don't think that the water quality would be too good from a borehole - the water in the lake is brak.

 

[BTTB]

Water Table

I would just like to point out something about Water Tables and here I am referring to coastal towns like Sedgefield which is only a couple of meters above Sea Level.

The way I see it, the water table cannot in theory drop below sea level?
Therefore a coastal town like Sedgefield would be at an advantage as acquiring water to irrigate would be merely a few meters below the surface.
A cheap well point (not a borehole which requires a submersible pump) would suffice in pumping more than enough water to keep every garden and yes, believe it or not, golf courses with enough H2O.

Every time there are Water Restrictions this same old argument about pumping water out of the ground, comes to the surface, excuse the pun.
In my opinion it is such a load of bollocks. A very high percentage of water that is pumped out of the ground shall return there.
Secondly, if an area is well irrigated the ground become more porous, so that when it does rain the rainwater will penetrate the land more easily and be absorbed by the earth, instead of running off the ground and into the storm water system and out to sea.

 

[mac_mac74]

Just another sign of this place falling apart. Government / municipalities think a country can be run without maintenance.

Hehe , i still enjoy Cape Town municipality slogan: "This city works for you" - bunch of lazy monkeys

 

[gboy]

A forumite from another forum asked the question do the Golfing Estates take water from the Municipal supply ? I think not, but they do lower the water table meaning less or no water to pump out the boreholes. George, Knysna & Mossel Bay, Plett are surrounded by golfing estates, maybe gboy knows more about how Simola, Pezula get their water. Do Pezula not pump from the Knoetzie River ?

I think they do, but not sure. I will try to find out.

I just know today i drove back from George and i saw the army tankers driving backward and forward.

It is so dry here it is scary, we just see clouds, but no rain,

 

[kilos]

Someone will have to answer for this catastrophy
Probe into late action on water

THE Knysna municipality will be appointing someone to investigate why the severity of the Sedgefield water shortage was only recognised after the situation became critical.

“The municipal manager will be appointing someone to investigate if there were perhaps some mitigating circumstances or persons that caused more crisis than necessary. We need to avoid this in future,” Knysna infrastructure portfolio councillor Andrew Finn told a media conference yesterday.

He said the crisis would probably have occurred anyway and that Knysna, which could run out of water in the next 30 days if the municipality stopped pumping water from rivers, needed to learn from the Sedgefield problem.

“We need to clamp down on Knysna now,” Finn said.

Knysna mayor Eleanore Bouw-Spies said 15 tankers were carting water to Sedgefield 24 hours a day and piping was being laid to transfer water from the Hoogekraal River to the Karatara River water treatment plant.

Once the pipes have been installed, the Hoogekraal River is expected to provide seven litres of water per second, half of Sedgefield‘s current water consumption.

Although it will not solve the problem entirely, it is expected to alleviate the dire shortage and reduce the tankers needed to bring in water from other towns.

At present, consumption is about a third of normal usage as residents adhere to stringent restrictions.

The situation became critical last week when the Karatara River ran dry, but the municipality found supplementary water in the Hoogekraal. It is also transporting water from George.

Finn said: “Knysna is also at risk. If we cannot extract water from the rivers, Knysna has only 30 days of water supply. It is imperative that Knysna residents adhere to water restrictions.”

He said consultants had visited Sedgefield to investigate setting up desalinisation plants, estimated to cost R15-million. The cost per kilolitre of water would be about R2,20. Carting water from George was R52/kl compared to the usual water price of R6/kl

 

[Ady]

It never ceases to amaze me how municipalities and government for that matter keep adding to existing infrastructure, but do nothing to upgrade resources that support the infrastructure such as roads, dams and electricity networks. Surely common sense must prevail and you must realise at some point that the existing infrastructure can only handle so much and adding to it will only put a drain on the system and a point will come where the demand far exceeds supply. Is this to much to ask?

The ex mayor of Knysna (not sure) said on Carte Blanche that money was budgeted for the construction of a dam when she was there and now there is not enough money for the planned dam. I'm sure this budgeted amount came in handy when bonus's were being handed out.

 

[BTTB]

I will try and get some inside "beef" on this story.

One thing I can say is that the Residents of the area have been on about the water problem for years. What has happened is no surprise.

I would just like to confirm a few points with my source.

 

[kilos]

Started raining in George lets hope it persists

 

[BTTB]

Started raining in George lets hope it persists

Phoned the folks tonight. Old man joked about having 3 inches of rain - more a case of each droplet of rain falling 3 metres apart.

I touched on the Water Story again and it just seems Knysna Council, or the politicians that run the Council, stopped the new Water Plant, quoting lack of monies. My folks on the other hand reckon it may even be a case of politicking as Knysna Council is run by the ANC and the DA control Sedgefield. Either way everyone is to blame in this saga, as no matter who is in charge, a Council's basic function is to provide water and if they cannot do that then they should close shop and let the town run the place.
The folks mentioned that according to their memory the plan for the new Water Treatment Plant and Dam has been in the pipeline for the last 14 years, that they can remember, probably a lot longer.

The folks mentioned that Miss/Mrs Brown did make comment in regards to the funding along the lines of the "rich" Developers footing the bill for the new water treatment plant and dam, which might I add costs R100 Million.
Not sure how Developers will be able to pay for this as Sedgefield has only a few Builders and you could hardly classify them as Developers, at least not Developers that could foot portion of that hefty tab for the new Water Plant.

The people living in the town reckon that Government at whatever level, they don't care, must foot the bill for all the Water Trucks that are now carting water on a daily basis. The Council were warned about the lack of water ages ago and more so again at the Residents AGM in December when they clearly stated that the Town was about to run out of water.

To cap the whole story as this one is the kicker. It seems that the Residents got wind of the critical levels of water in January when it became evident that there was only 4 days of water left in the Karatara River and not even the Municipal Manager and the Council was aware of this fact at the time?
The Residents of Sedgefield had to make a lot of noises at different levels for this reality to filter through? Some Council!

 

[lsuacner]

Knysna hippies don't need water. Pretty girls there also with no takers..

 

[gboy]

No Knysnas Girls are:

A) Snobs daddys little rich girl.

B) Hooked on Drugs, because there is nothing else to do.

trust me i know

the only real eye candy comes when its summer holiday season. then all the birds migrate to the sea.

 

[stoke]

Amazingly, nobody's been fired yet.

 

[kilos]

Just started with thunder activity (unusual for George)& drops of rain and I see alot of heavy cloud on EUMetsat website
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/FOG/SOUTHERNAFRICA/index.htm
Hopefully this willl bring much needed rain to the Western & Eastern Cape to alleviate the severe drought

Looks like a cyclone off the coast Madagascar too

Aah no, hotazhel at 32.1 degrees today and 0.4mm of rain.

 

[kilos]

Yesterday we had 6.6mm and this morning 6.6 -> 10.6mm maybe just maybe this will slowly start filling the rivers & dams, nice soft soaking rain

Weather Station http://midafricam.co.za/main/content/view/42/71/lang,en/