Mossel Bay Municipality

NEWS RELEASE

DATE :          10 FEBRUARY 2010

CONSTRUCTION OF REVERSE OSMOSIS PLANT BEGINS

Construction of a reverse osmosis facility at a cost of approximately R49 million commenced this week with the official handing over of the site to the contractors on 8 February 2010. The project entails the purifying of municipal effluent to a standard that would render it suitable for production purposes at PetroSA’s synthetic fuels plant. PetroSA requires a certain quality of water for their production purposes and the plant has been designed to ensure that this standard has been met.

“We are very grateful for the support and co-operation from PetroSA which has made this project possible. PetroSA has contributed an amount of R 22,5 million and together with the R 16,5 million from Department of Water Affairs and R 10 million from the municipality through reprioritising the capital budget, this project has been financed without having to burden the ratepayers” said the Executive Mayor, Alderlady Marie Ferreira.

The facility, which will yield approximately 5 megalitres of water daily, is expected to be commissioned by the beginning of June 2010. The facility will be established at the Waste Water Treatment Works in Hartenbos Sewerage Works.

At present the Wolwedans Dam supplies water to both the Municipality and the PetroSA plant. The reverse osmosis facility will therefore mean that more of the dam’s water will be available for municipal use and the municipality’s water supply will last longer.

The current project is the first phase of a planned longer term project to purify effluent from the Municipality’s waste water treatment plant for specialised industrial and other purposes. It is planned to double the capacity of this plant and applications for additional funding for the second phase have been submitted to the Department of Water Affairs and National Treasury in this regard.

Once the first phase is completed, the yield will be equal to approximately a third of the daily water requirements of PetroSA.

The effluent treatment option has proved to be the most economical and meet our current requirements best. Many residents have asked why we do not follow the Sedgefield project and establish a desalination plant. Sedgefield’s water consumption is approximately 1,5 megalitres per day compared to the 34 megalitres per day for Mossel Bay and PetroSA. The cost to establish a desalination plant in Mossel Bay will therefore be extremely high and the electricity costs associated with such a plant are also high, a kilolitre of water will cost more or less R 14,40 compared to the approximately R 3,50 per kilolitre for the effluent plant. We have not discounted the possibility of a desalination plant completely but will only follow that route once other options have been exhausted.

The water situation remains critical and residents are once again requested to use water sparingly. The Wolwedans Dam level fell by an alarming 4,5% in January. This is a sharper drop than in December and can be attributed to the fact that there were many holiday makers until mid January, very high temperatures in January which caused more rapid evaporation and extremely low rainfall in January compared to the 25 mm rain which was measured in December.

Ends