Harare faces serious water shortages
By NOZIPHO MASEKO
Published on: 13th January, 2010
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ZIMBABWE – HARARE – WATER supplies for Harare and surrounding satellite towns could be cut by 15 per-cent following the imminent temporary shutdown of Prince Edward Water Treatment Plant until the Manyame River starts flowing.
Harare City Council might be forced to close Prince Edward Water Treatment Plant after pre-liminary assessments showed the two dams — Harava and Seke — that supply the plant have 40 days of water supply left.
The two small dams are there to tide the city through a few months of the driest seasons. The plant relies mainly on continued flow in the Manyame River, normally a perennial river.
Run-off in the upper Manyame catchment has been delayed in recent decades because of the very large number of farm
dams on the river’s tributaries.
The plant’s daily output of 66 megalitres is nor-mally earmarked for Chitungwiza, Mabvuku, Tafara, Manressa, Harare
International Airport, Msasa and parts of Hatfield, among other southern and eastern sub-urbs, since it is at a higher altitude than Lake Chivero and is closer to these areas which makes pumping easier.
The city can pump water from the far larger Morton Jaffray plant to these higher eastern areas via the pipeline linking
Letombo reservoirs to the western pump stations but will have to cut back supplies in western and central areas to do so.
Zinwa’s state of the major dams’ report released on Monday confirmed the city’s fears. Seke Dam is 34,1 percent full while Harava Dam is 38,2 percent full.
However, the other dams that supply Harare water — Chivero and Manyame — are 99,6 and 84,2 percent full respectively. These two dams are not only far larger than the two upstream dams but with Morton Jaffray Waterworks are part of a system that uses the annual floodwaters in the Manyame to supply the city throughout the year.
The two large dams also receive the processed effluent from the modern sewage treatment works, in effect allowing
considerable recycling.
While the two little dams contain only three months supply, even at the far smaller Prince Edward works, the two large dams can keep Morton Jaffray going for at least two years with-out inflows.
None of the city dams is spilling yet as a result of the low rainfall recorded to date. A Harare water official confirmed yesterday that the two small dams had 40 days supply of water remaining between them.
Should the plant be closed, it means the city’s water supply would have been reduced by about 15 percent, which implies tighter rationing for consumers.
Already, residents of eastern and northern sub-urbs are short of municipal water because the city does not rotate water cuts and cannot meet demand. Harare prefers to give a continu-ous water supply to two-thirds of the city and leave the other third perpetually dry, rather than follow the example of other cities, especially Bulawayo, which rotates cuts.
Many residents of the low-density suburbs in the dry zone are paying 333 times more for their water because council has failed to provide them with water for the past three years.
The city charges 30c a cubic metre while private companies are charging as much as US$10 for the same quantity. Borehole own-ers are cash-ing in on shortages as well and charge varying amounts a cubic metre. City spokesman Mr Leslie Gwindi blamed the bulk of the water shortage on power cuts at water works and pump stations.
“We are meeting with the Zesa guys tomorrow (today) to discuss the best ways we can avoid shortchanging residents,” he said.
Mr Gwindi said it was sad that private water suppliers were asking residents to pay huge amounts of money. He said council was working to rectify the anomaly.
Nearly all households in the northern suburbs have mounted water storage tanks at their properties, which they periodically fill up with water from private companies.
The tanks range from plastic containers to disused fuel tankers. A 5 000-litre tank of water costs US$50 to fill up.
The majority of residents without boreholes have contracts with private water suppliers who make weekly refills.
Some of the residents are boycotting paying city bills citing non-availability of water.
The city continues to charge fixed charges on some properties while other residents complain of astronomical bills.
According to the city water status report some of the northern suburbs such as Kambanji, Glen Lorne, Chisipite and Shawasha Hills are supposed to get water every Sunday but they are not.
Some of the affected suburbs are Greendale, Highlands, Ballantyne Park, Borrowdale West, Philadelphia, Hogerty Hill, Athlone and Mandara.
