In South Africa, Amatola Water, the Eastern Cape water services company, is completing the expansion of the Nooitgedacht drinking water plant. The upgraded plant supplies drinking water to the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality and surrounding area.
The Nooitgedacht drinking water plant is back in operation. Amatola Water, which won the contract to expand the plant, has announced that the work will be completed on 1 April 2022. This is the final phase of the project to extend the drinking water supply system in Nooitgedacht, a suburb in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
According to the South African Department of Water and Sanitation, the project was to be completed in June 2021 and again in September 2021. However, the deadline for delivery of the facility has been pushed back due to budgetary constraints and contractual issues that have been resolved.
Strengthening the drinking water supply
As a result of the work carried out by Amatola Water, the capacity of the Nooitgedacht drinking water plant has been increased to approximately 190,000 m3 of water per day, up from 70,000 m3 when it was commissioned in 1993. The facility processes raw water pumped from the Gariep Dam reservoir, located on the border between the Free State provinces and the Eastern Cape, 400 km to the south.
Of the cubic metres of water supplied by the rehabilitated plant, 70 000 m3 will be transferred to the western areas via the Stanford Road booster pumping station, says Amatola Water. The remaining 120 000 m3 of water will be distributed to the people of Nelson Mandela Bay Metro.
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To date, the municipality has a production capacity of 270 000 m3 of water per day, of which approximately 100 000 m3 comes from the Krom River. In addition to strengthening the existing water facilities, the completion of the Nooitgedacht project marks an important step in the fight against the drought that has particularly affected Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in recent years.
Inès Magoum
