The Department of Water Affairs is pleased that the Edenville regional bulk infrastructure project in Ngwathe Local Municipality has been successfully completed.

Background
The South African government has come a long way in achieving many of its obligations with regards to the effective management of water resources and the effective supply of water services.

The water sector is, however, still faced with many challenges. At the forefront of these challenges are the following: ensuring provision of water services to all, managing the scarcity of water and managing the existing infrastructure and water works effectively. There are still a considerable number of people without basic water services; water supply is scarce in various regions and there are far too many incidents of pollution caused from inadequate wastewater works that are contaminating the environment and are causing health risks to society.

Ngwathe Local Municipality – Edenville bulk water supply project
In the 2007/08 financial year, this project was allocated R4.8-million for a ground water development and regional supply scheme. It was further granted R646 000 in 2008/09, R3.7-million in 2009/10 and R3.5-million in the 2010/11 financial years. Identified components for implementation were: a three-million- litre (3Ml) storage reservoir in Edenville; borehole drilling, testing and equipping; connecting pipelines between the existing boreholes, the reservoirs in town and the township to a new reservoir, the boreholes and a pump station. The scheme was supposed to be in operation by July 2009.

This became the very first ground-water regional bulk infrastructure project under this programme nationally, and thus attracted significant interested nationally, provincially and locally as ground-water resources are still stigmatised in terms of reliability, quality and sustainability. It therefore had to be one of the success stories of the programme!

The District Municipality (Fezile Dabi) saw that the project was lagging behind, and so came in to co-fund and assist in implementation of the project. This intervention added value to the project.

There were, however, numerous challenges with regards to implementation and completion of this project as originally anticipated, causing people to question the pace of service delivery.

Progress
After numerous interventions, the department dedicated to biweekly (in some cases weekly) technical site meetings to closely monitor the situation and intervene immediately where the delays are still persistent. This intervention was supported by the district municipality and the local municipality.

The project team (consultant and contractor) had to commit on a detailed work plan, which was developed by all parties based on outstanding works for the scheme.

While this project is intended to overcome short-to-medium-term shortages in Edenville, interventions for long-term solutions have commenced. The feasibility study conducted by the district municipality in 2009, indicated that ground water has a possibility of lasting only until 2020 and therefore interventions for beyond 2020 have to be explored.

The current scheme has been completed – eight boreholes are productive and are supplying water to the new reservoir, which is then pumped to the reservoir in town and another one in the township. The project will be sustainable as long as the local municipality continuously monitors it and conducts proper maintenance of the infrastructure.

The scheme was handed over the local municipality in July 2011 and site visits have been conducted subsequent to the handover. The project not only supplied potable water to Edenville but created temporary jobs during the construction of different components of the project. Those involved also gained experience that will be valuable for future projects of this nature.

Summary
One prevalent challenge with water-services delivery and the sustainability thereof is the lack of bulk-water systems. Should proper bulk systems be put in place, issues of storage, regional supply and more can be eliminated. Ngwathe Local Municipality has been ferrying water from Heilbron to Edenville using two water tankers a day. This has massive associated costs, which can now be eliminated as the current ground-water project is now supplying water to Edenville. This ground water, according to investigations, would sustain the short-to-mediumterm water demands of Edenville. This means that Edenville will be catered for up until such time that other possible long-term solutions are thoroughly investigated and implemented. The project was completed, commissioned and officially handed over to Ngwathe Local Municipality by the Department of Water Affairs in July 2011.