The first contract of Durban’s Northern Aqueduct bulk water pipeline project has gone out to tender and is expected to be awarded during the fourth quarter of this year, project manager Martin Bright said on Wednesday.

Construction on this first contract of the project was expected to start next year.

The Northern Aqueduct project, which was needed to secure water for critical development projects, such as the Cornubia housing development, had been designed and was being monitored by a joint venture between Knight Piesold and Naidu Consulting.

The first contract of the project started at Phoenix Reservoir 2 and extended to the Waterloo reservoir near Verulam, and included a link to the Umhlanga reservoir, Bright added.

Meanwhile, a tender to construct the new Blackburn reservoir, which would play a crucial role in supplying water to Cornubia, was also being processed.

The second contract within the Northern Aqueduct project, which stretched from Duffs road to the Phoenix Reservoir 2, was currently undergoing an environmental-impact assessment, he said.

“Documentation is currently with the Department of Environmental Affairs. This is an important link as it will boost water supply for the Cornubia development through the pipeline to be constructed under the first contract of the Northern Aqueduct,” Bright explained.

Unlike the Western Aqueduct project, the Northern Aqueduct was not being built in a linear fashion, he added. 

“Segments in areas of critical need would be put in place first which would allow water to be routed to important areas from reservoirs with spare capacity in order to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of water,” Bright said.

He added that construction of the Western Aqueduct, which would ultimately feed water into the Northern Aqueduct was gathering momentum, pointing out that the eThekwini municipality had released a further R580-million to be used over a three-year period to accelerate the city’s water infrastructure projects.

The second contract of the Western Aqueduct project, for the segment of the pipeline that begins at Alverstone Neck and continues to Ashley drive, in Hillcrest, was awarded to KwaZulu-Natal company WK SA Construction in August. Construction was expected to start this month.

Bright said additional funding had also enabled eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS) to link the next two contracts so that the pipeline reaching from Ashley drive to the NR5 reservoir, at Ntuzuma, could be completed in one. The tender for this contract, as well as for a massive 20 Mℓ break pressure tank at Ashley drive, were expected to be awarded before the end of this year.

Meanwhile, EWS head Neil Macleod pointed out that, while the city’s balance between supply and demand had been restored for the time being, with the new Springrove dam near the Mooi river having come on stream and abnormally high rainfall that had ensured that existing dams were full, as new development continued, the city would go back into a deficit.

“Each year going forward is critical. From 2014 onwards, we start slipping back to where the supply is not statistically able to meet the demand,” Macleod said.

He noted that the existing water network to the north of Durban was stretched to its limit.

“Water outages in Ntuzuma and parts of Inanda are happening almost daily and the eThekwini municipality has given permission for EWS to add a further 27 tankers to bring its fleet to 70. These will be used for areas where supply is not adequate, while we wait for the Northern and Western Aqueducts to be up and running,” he said.