BULAWAYO – The Bulawayo City Council says it is extending its weekly water shedding schedule to four days from the current three after consumption peaked, and water levels at its main dams dropped.
The local authority says its capacity to pump water has been severely restricted by power cuts.
“The City of Bulawayo would like to advise members of the public of the review of the current 72-hour weekly water shedding programme to 96-hour weekly programme with effect from Monday, November 25, 2019,” the council said in a statement on Thursday.
“The programme is being reviewed in a bid to stabilise the reservoirs and prevent them from depleting further. It is further being implemented in a bid to raise the raw water reservoir level to a comfortable buffer level of 5.5 metres.”
The council says its supply dams are 14 percent full on average, but water consumption has spiked to 155 mega litres per day compared to the available capacity of 110 mega litres.
Town Clerk Christopher Dube said one of their main supply dams, Umzingwane, could be decommissioned as early as November 25. The dam is currently 4.85 percent full, and pumping will stop when it gets to 4 percent.
Dube said intermittent power supply to the Ncema Water Treatment plant, Fernhill pumping station and their three dams, Umzingwane, Inyankuni and Mtshabezi had severely restricted their capacity to deliver water to residents.
Power shortage disruptions were also being experienced at the Magwegwe reservoir which gets its water from the Nyamandlovu Aquifer, Dube said.
The local authority says raw water pumping is restricted by old pumps which are constantly breaking down.
Poor rainfall last year has seen most of Bulawayo’s water supply dams in Matabeleland South province reach dangerously low levels.
