The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Reporter
HWANGE Local Board (HLB) has started rehabilitating one of its waste water treatment plants after going close to a decade of disposing raw effluent into nearby streams.
The local authority has been battling to dispose solid human waste for eight years after the break down of its two treatment plants at Baobab and Empumalanga suburbs, a situation that has negatively impacted on its ability to effectively manage the environment in a sustainable way in its area of jurisdiction.
HLB engineer Philip Nguni said rehabilitation of the Baobab plant which caters for 500 housing units from the affluent suburbs of Baobab and part of Chibondo started last month.
The rehabilitation programme was funded by the Infrastructural Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) at a cost of $300 000 and the work is being carried out by Woodton Engineering.
“We have embarked on the rehabilitation of our waste water treatment plants. We started with the Baobab sewer water treatment plant. This plant has not been functioning for the past eight years. What has been happening is that untreated sewer water was flowing to nearby water bodies.
“The initial phase is to work on the structural framework of the tank and also on the blowers. The mechanical and electrical works were not functional as power was disconnected some time back. We are now decanting all the sludge and attending to all mechanical components as well as chlorination unit,” said Eng Nguni.
He said work on the Baobab plant was expected to be completed before the end of this month.
“We presented our case to the Ministerial taskforce on anti-pollution and we got support from our parent ministry (Local Government, Public Works and National Housing) which resulted in us getting funding from IDBZ. This will see us fully rehabilitating the Baobab plant and then attending to the trans-sewer line.
“We hope that when resources are availed, we then move on to the bigger one at Empumalanga. The initial funding is that we are able to work on the Baobab one for the year 2016. I think it is going to be the first sewer system to run on solar energy in the country, with uninterrupted power supply,” said Eng Nguni.
The Empumalanga plant services a population of over 6 000 people. The local authority expects that the rehabilitation of its sewer plants would play a significant role in its service delivery mandate.
“It has been a challenge for us to commit to service delivery fully in the past eight years, bearing in mind that residents were contributing something toward service delivery but not getting that service.
“We hope now that we have started works on our water sewer plants, there is going to be a cleaner environment in the town,” Eng Nguni added.
@DNsingo
