Appointing specialist water engineering consultants to oversee water infra- structure management could solve the challenges facing water infrastructure in South Africa, independent mining, water and environmental consultants SRK Consulting Durban office partner Murray Sim tells Engineering News.
He believes a new strategy needs to involve consultants in the management process, while still working within the frameworks of local municipalities’ water management.
“Potentially, a consultant could be appointed to manage a pollution-control structure on a contractual basis. If any information pertaining to the pollution-control structure is required, the consultant would supply the information. Basically, the consultant will take ownership of the structure for that specific contract period,” he says.
Sim says the consultant’s responsibilities would vary, depending on the client’s specific requirements. Some responsibilities could include developing an operational maintenance programme; removing litter, debris or oil from the water structure; implementing design modi- fications, such as pollution-control structures for future planning to improve the system; and informing the municipality about capital cost estimates and maintenance requirements.
Further, municipalities have a major shortage of low-flow gauging stations required for the calibration of various hydrological modelling packages.
“The majority of pollution-control structures are designed for low-flow conditions. Therefore, flow measurements can be incorporated into the operational maintenance programme and, depending on the sensitivity of the area, the addition of a water-quality sampling programme could be considered to facilitate future baseline modelling,” explains Sim.
He says, depending on the success of the programme, it could eventually be expanded to include the management of a catchment area.
“This would provide much-needed employ- ment through increasing maintenance teams and it would create awareness on pollution problems among local residents,” Sim emphasises.
He states that potential pollution in the natural environment should be dealt with at the point source and it should be the responsibility of the property owner to ensure pollution is monitored.
Meanwhile, many of industries have existing underground oil separators, which have never been emptied, causing oil to flow directly through the water-control structure to the formalised stormwater system during a storm. “The majority of pollution-control structures are effective for the first few months after imple- mentation, but they soon become blocked and/ or damaged and, essentially, a dumping ground for illegally disposed refuse,” says Sim.
He notes that there are few pollution-control structures that are still operating effectively in South Africa, with the root cause being the absence of an operational maintenance plan.
“Many of the municipalities do not have the capacity or an operational maintenance programme in place and are restricted by budget allocations to enforce regular maintenance of pollution-control structures,” highlights Sim.