Water issues interest visitors

JOBURG’S water supply and wastewater treatment were at the heart of discussions with a team from India, which was in town to study the City’s operations.Read More
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Joburg's water supply and wastewater treatment were at the heart of discussions with a team from India, which was in town to study the City’s operations.
A DELEGATION from Andhra Pradesh, a state in southeast India, was in Joburg on a study tour to learn about the City’s best practices and experiences in the urban sector. During the visit, the group had a meeting hosted by the Joburg innovation and knowledge exchange (Jike).

KatamneniSouth Africa and India relatively similar, says Katamneni BhaskarThe meeting, arranged by the National Treasury on behalf of the World Bank, was held on Tuesday, 1 November at the Metropolitan Centre in Braamfontein. Jike collects, stores and disseminates the City’s strategic knowledge.

Joburg was the first leg of the visitors’ study tour; they will also visit eThekwini Municipality and the city of Cape Town, since these cities have different water supply management models.

In Joburg their main interests included primary water supply and sewerage in urban service delivery as well as in informal settlements, city-level utilities, public-private partnerships, models of city management and governance, and urban planning with the integration of transport.

Delegates comprised Katamneni Bhaskar, the Indian Administrative Service’s project director of the Andhra Pradesh Municipal Development Project Programme; Venkata Meka, a municipal commissioner; Gopala Krishnareddy, senior engineer; and Vijay Kumar, the Indian Administrative Service’s secretary of the urban development department.

Water
Following a hearty welcome by Pakiso Harvey Phalatse, the Jike director, Bhaskar mentioned that the group wanted to learn from Joburg because South Africa and India were relatively similar. At the top of their list of things to learn about were sewerage processing and the distribution of water.

Speakers on the day included Anthony Selepe, the acting director of the City’s central strategy unit; Nkosinathati Mthethwa, Region F’s director of development planning and urban management; Enoc Mudau, Joburg Water’s senior manager in the new service division; and Lorraine Wilkinson, the City’s director of municipal international and intergovernmental relations.

In his presentation, Selepe gave some insight into Joburg’s recently released Growth and Development Strategy. Joburg 2040, as it is called, is an aspirational document that defines the type of society Joburg wants to become by 2040.

“Johannesburg is one of the few major cities not located on a major water source, with water scarcity and the increasing cost of water presenting a significant challenge … Water is central to economic production and the wellbeing of our residents, yet most of the city’s water is imported from elsewhere,” reads the document.

Supply and demand
According to the strategy, the City of Johannesburg buys water from Rand Water and distributes it to the final consumer; it is therefore responsible for managing consumer demand.

A water treatment plantA wastewater treatment plant in Ennerdale“It is noted that the first stable bulk water supply coincided with the establishment of the Rand Water Board in 1903. In the intervening 108 years, water demand has grown steadily. In 1920, Rand Water had to accommodate water demand of approximately 90 millilitres a day; today, demand has grown to approximately 1 396 millilitres a day.”

Joburg Water is responsible for providing top-quality water to approximately three million residents. It has been recognised numerous times for the quality of Johannesburg’s tap water, which rates among the cleanest, safest and healthiest in the world.

The company is an independent company, with the City of Johannesburg its only shareholder. It has an annual turnover of more than R1,6-billion.

There are 10 957,88 kilometres of pipes distributing water across the city. The company’s electro-mechanical maintenance department ensures that Joburg Water’s 33 water towers, 87 reservoirs and pump stations are functional 24 hours a day.

It has three laboratories, accredited with the South African National System, which test over 500 samples each month. The company also operates six wastewater treatment works, with a combined process capacity of 960 megalitres a day, 38 sewer pumping stations and 10 058,03 kilometres of sewer pipelines, stretching from Midrand to Ennerdale.

At the end of the day, the delegation was taken on site visits to the wastewater treatment works in Olifantsvlei and to the Chris Hani (Chicken Farm) informal settlement in Kliptown, Soweto for further insight.