Rand Water

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The Sterkfontein reservoir near Harrismith

Rand Water ( SOC ) is a state owned South African company responsible for water supply and wastewater treatment . It supplies a large part of Gauteng and parts of the provinces of Mpumalanga , Free State and North West . Rand Water is subordinate to the national Department of Water and Sanitation (German about: Ministry for Water and Hygiene). The company is based in Glenvista , a district of Johannesburg . Rand Water's current business structure resulted from a reorganization under the Water Services Act ( Act 108/1997 , section 84 ).

history

Historical starting point

With the discovery of the gold deposits on the Witwatersrand in 1886, the number of European immigrants in this region grew rapidly within a short period of time. The population increase created a sharp increase in water demand for their household management, which was initially difficult to meet in the region, which was rather arid due to natural conditions.

During this early phase of Johannesburg's urban growth, water was drawn from the Fordsburgspruit valley , where the Transvaal government had acquired land from the Braamfontein farm to supply water to the nearby miners' settlements. Water was also withdrawn near today's End Street from an area designated Natalspruit . It was here, in the suburbs known as Brickfields , that the first brickworks developed , supplying the early Johannesburg with building materials. Another water extraction point was on the site of today's Johannesburg Hospital in the Parktown district .

The progressive success of gold mining on the Witwatersrand caused the water requirement to increase continuously and additionally.

Water supply by private companies

Beginnings of water supply in Donald Mackay Park, Berea ( Braamfontein ), Johannesburg

The high demand for water initiated the establishment of private utility companies. That was the Braamfontein Water Company and the Vierfontein Syndicate in 1893 . The Braamfontein Water Company was delivering approximately 0.6 million liters per day to Parktown from two tapping points in the area. From Vierfontein Syndicate is known that water for the nearby mining and better quality was provided for drinking water supply.

A first major concession for a private water supply (and gas light installation ) in Johannesburg was granted by the Transvaal Volksraad with the Sivewright Concession in 1887. On this basis, James Sivewright created the Johannesburg Waterworks Estate and Exploration Company Ltd. in July of the same year . The permit enabled the company to lay underground lines for the purpose of supplying water to Johannesburg. Barney Barnato acquired this company a few months after it was founded, in 1889. The economic framework conditions caused the drinking water supply to rise uncontrollably, so that the population in private households switched to soda water .

In the first few years, drinking water was obtained from the outlets of the natural spring horizons at the foot of the hills in the city area. As consumption increased, the utilities started drilling in the area of ​​the Zwartkoppjes farm . The customers were supplied with donkey wagons for two shillings and six pence per bucket. However, the demand for water continued to rise and in 1899 the Zuurbekom pumping station went into operation.

Establishment of the Rand Water Board

This unsustainable development only came under public scrutiny after the British government signed the peace treaty with the Boer republics on May 31, 1902 . In this context, it was recognized that the structures of water supply and wastewater disposal urgently need to be examined from the point of view of public responsibility.

With Rand Water Board Incorporation Ordinance No. 32 of May 1903 the legal basis for the establishment of the Johannesburg Water Board ( The Rand Water Board ) was created. It started operations on May 8, 1903. Representatives from the Johannesburg City Council, the Chamber of Mines and other local authorities were involved in the Board of Directors .

In 1904, Rand Water was commissioned to take over the water extraction systems from those companies involved in it, which pumped water quantities relevant to the local community. In this way, the authority became the region's sole major water supplier.

Water management since 1905

Rand Water was fully operational as early as 1905. In 1906, the daily water requirement guaranteed by Rand Water had reached 11 million liters and has been increasing steadily since that time. Because water was always a scarce resource in the growing metropolitan area of ​​Johannesburg, the water authority was forced both to impose some restrictions and to keep looking for new extraction opportunities.

The first storage of water from the Vaals took place in 1905 at Vereeniging, when the Leslie weir ( Leslie's weir ) was built here. Although it was only 5 feet high, it dammed the river water for 8 miles. This water reservoir was used for agricultural irrigation in the region around Maccauvlei (suburb of Vereeniging).

The following major plants and supply systems were developed by Rand Water for the Johannesburg region (the year of their construction or commissioning in brackets):

The Vaal River Development Scheme Act of 1934 laid the legal basis for the construction of the facilities along the Vaals. Until the early 1930s, the Klipspruit Sewage Farm remained Johannesburg's only wastewater treatment facility. It was only from this time onwards, on the initiative of the city technician EJ Hamlich, that further sewage treatment plants developed in the valley cuts of the watercourses flowing north from the urban area of ​​Johannesburg.

Pretoria

The Pretoria parish has been supplied with water by Rand Water Board since 1942 . This area was previously the responsibility of a private company. The Pretoria Water Works Companie, Ltd. was created on December 31, 1989 by its owner LG Vorstmann, who formally founded it on December 10th. She received her concession for water management activities for a period of 50 years.

Dam facilities under Rand Water's administration

Site plan of the dams of the Thukela-Vaal Transfer Scheme ( Thukela-Vaal Transfer Scheme )
Site map of key components of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

The following dams are part of Rand Water's water extraction systems:

The Bloemhof reservoir is the westernmost water reservoir of Rand Water. It is located in the small town of Bloemhof on the territories of two provinces, North West and Free State . This reservoir has a water surface of 233 km 2 and can hold 1.26 billion m 3 of water. The average water depth is 18 meters. Further downstream, the Vaal in the vicinity of the town of Christiana feeds the Vaalharts Water canal network , which is one of the most comprehensive irrigation systems in the world. The Bloemhof reservoir regulates the amount of water required for this in the river.
The Grootdraai reservoir is located east of the city of Standerton in the Mpumalanga area and has a storage capacity of 350 million m 3 . It is mainly fed by the Vaal and extends its water surface to 39 km 2 . The greatest water depth is 27 meters.
The barrage system on the Vaal is 64 kilometers long and has a total storage capacity of 63 million liters. The total water area is 168.35 km 2 and its mean water depth is 3.5 meters.
The construction of this dam in the 1930s was a joint effort between Rand Water and the Department of Irrigation . The Vaal reservoir provides Gauteng's main water requirement. Its catchment area amounts to 38,505 km 2 and it can hold up 2575 m 3 of water. Its total water area is 321 km 2 and the mean water depth is 22.5 m. The reservoir is fed directly or indirectly by large rivers such as Vaal, Waterval, Liebenbergsvlei, Klip, Nuwejaarspruit, Eland and Wilge.
The Sterkfontein Reservoir is located at Harrismith in Free State , near the border with KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho . It was completed in two phases, 1980 and 1986. The location of the reservoir has proven to be very advantageous from a water management point of view, since the environmental conditions of its surroundings are very good and the climatic situation at its location causes a comparatively low evaporation rate (approx. 35 million m 3 per year). The dam was originally built at a height of 68 meters and the dam crest was raised to 93 m in 1980. The reservoir has a capacity of 2,617 million cubic meters of water and is located in the Nuwejaarspruit valley , a tributary of the Wilge River . In the southern section, the weir of the Driekloof reservoir ( Driekloof Dam ) crosses the dam area, both bodies of water are directly behind each other and have only a slight difference in level. The Driekloof Reservoir receives its water from the Jagersrust Balancing Dam in the neighboring Tugela catchment area through small natural tributaries and via the tunnel-pipeline system of the Drakensberg Pumped Storage Scheme .
The Woodstock Dam is located on the territory of the province of KwaZulu-Natal near Bergville and not far from the border with Lesotho. The reservoir is relatively small at 29 km 2 , but has an average depth of 40 meters and can therefore hold up 380 million m 3 of water. It is part of the Tugela-Vaal Transfer Scheme ( Tugela-Vaal Transfer Scheme ), which went into operation in 1974, which includes other smaller reservoirs such as Driel Barrage ( KZN ), Kilburn Dam (KZN) and Driekloof Dam ( FS ). They are connected to one another by tunnels and overground canals. From the Driekloof Reservoir, the water reaches the Sterkfontein Reservoir, which is located directly below it and is only separated by a weir. Sections of these water management systems are part of the Drakensberg Pumped Storage Scheme from Eskom , a pumped storage power plant connected by means of an underground pressurized water pipe between the Driekloof reservoir and the Kilburn reservoir . They are used to generate electricity during peak loads in the network.
The availability of water from the Tugela-Vaal transfer system enabled Rand Water to maintain unrestricted water supplies for consumers during large dry spells such as those that occurred in 1983-1987 and 1995. In such cases, the production capacities of the Drakensberg Pumped Storage Scheme are used to transport water from a compensation basin ( Jagersrust Balancing Dam ) at the Jagersrust Pump Station via a pipeline and through three tunnels over the watershed (Vaal-Tugela) in the area of ​​the Oliviershoek Pass into the from here to the north of the catchment area of ​​the Vaal (here the Nuwejaarspruit ), to feed it into the Sterkfontein Dam and thus to secure the water supply in the Gauteng region at peak consumption values.
According to its planning approach, the LHWP serves to secure Gauteng's water supply until beyond 2020. In the neighboring country of Lesotho, dams, tunnels and canals were built to convey water to the Vaal Dam in South Africa. The planned complex consists of six dams and three pumping stations. So far the Katse dam and the Mohale dam exist . The way it works, the systems guide the water from the Senqu / Oranje through tunnels through the Maluti Mountains into the Ash River in the eastern part of the Free State province , where it then flows naturally to the Vaal reservoir. The first phase of the project ended in 1998.

  • Bloemhof dam

  • Vaal dam

  • Sterkfontein dam

  • Driekloof reservoir (right) with the weir to the Sterkfontein dam

  • Kilburn Dam and Woodstock Dam in the background

Raw water supply

Most of the raw water is taken from the Vaal reservoir via canal and gravity pipeline. Additional inflow volumes come from the Vaal River Barrage Reservoir in Lethabo , Zuikerbosch and Vereeniging through pump systems . A smaller proportion can be obtained from aquifers at Zuurbekom . The entire volume of raw water flows to cleaning systems. The raw water goes through several technological stages. These are the processes: coagulation , flocculation , sedimentation , stabilization ( lowering the pH value ), filtration , sterilization and chlorination .

water-tank

Yeoville water tower in Johannesburg-Doornfontein (Harley Street)

Rand Water brings together water from the Vaal reservoir as well as from the cleaning and pump systems in Vereeniging and Zuikerbosch. From these pumping stations, the water is directed to the central booster pumping station in Zwartkopjes, where it is pumped across the watershed to 58 higher-lying water reservoirs around Johannesburg with the help of three additional satellite pumps in Palmiet , Eikenhof and Mapleton . The level difference to be overcome is between 180 and 360 meters. From these high reservoirs it reaches distribution stations by gravity and, if necessary, by means of pumps, from where it can be conveyed to the outer limits of the supply area.

Rand Water's customers are three metropolitan communities , 15 municipalities , the Royal Bafokeng Nation administration , 45 mining facilities and around 771 industrial and direct customers. Among the customers are u. a. large urban water supply and disposal companies such as Johannesburg Water SOC Ltd., founded in 2001

Pipelines

The pipeline network of Rand Water has a length of 3,056 kilometers. The pipe system consists of steel or concrete pipes. Because the concrete elements are too prone to leaks, they are gradually being replaced with steel pipes. Concrete pipes only make up 10 percent of the pipeline network.

Water supply

In 1965, Rand Water provided 1,000 million liters a day to customers. In 2012 it was 4,000 million liters per day.

In the course of the drought catastrophe since 2015 , Rand Water was temporarily unable to meet the water requirements in the Gauteng Province to the required extent due to insufficient water treatment capacities.

Rand Water Academy

The Water Academy is an educational facility run by Rand Water, which opened in 2012 and offers courses aimed at young people who have already been trained. The courses reflect topics from the fields of science, craftsmanship, technology and process control.

literature

Web links

Commons : Rand Water, Johannesburg Government Office  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Yeoville Water Tower, Johannesburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rand Water: Rand Water's Terms and Conditions . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  2. ↑ a b Rand Water: Area Of Supply . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  3. ^ Rand Water: History of Rand Water . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  4. ↑ Johannesburg timeline 1800-1991. 1887 . on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
  5. ^ Vaal Triangle History. Water 1 . on www.vaaltriangleinfo.co.za ( Memento of the original from September 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vaaltriangleinfo.co.za
  6. ^ Vaal Triangle History. Water 2 . on www.vaaltriangleinfo.co.za ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vaaltriangleinfo.co.za
  7. ↑ S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science: Orr, Professor John (engineering) . on www.s2a3.org.za (English)
  8. ↑ Lani v. Vuuren: Vaal Dam - Underlying Gauteng's Wealth . In: The Water Wheel, July / August 2008, online at www.ewisa.co.za, PDF document p. 1–2 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ewisa.co.za
  9. ^ Rand Water: Zuikerbosch pumping station, map sketch . Download link (English)
  10. ^ Water Institute of Southern Africa: History . at www.wisa.org.za ( Memento of the original from May 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wisa.org.za
  11. ^ Vaal Triangle History. Water 3 . on www.vaaltriangleinfo.co.za ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vaaltriangleinfo.co.za
  12. ^ Report of the Transvaal Concessions Commission, Dated 19th April 1901: Report of the Transvaal Concession Commission. Pretoria Water Supply . In: Despatches from United States Consuls in Pretoria, I898-I906 , Vol. 3 (January 2, 1904 to August 4, 1906), The National Archives, Washington 1962, pp. 121-122. at www.archive.org (English)
  13. ^ Rand Water: Dam Levels . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  14. ^ Rand Water: Where does our water comes from? on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  15. ↑ EWISA: Sterkfontein Dam: Free State . on www.ewisa.co.za ( Memento of the original from July 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ewisa.co.za
  16. ↑ a b DWA: Sterkfontein Dam . on www6.dwa.gov.za  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www6.dwa.gov.za  
  17. ^ Eskom: Drakensberg pumped storage scheme. Visitors center and tour. on www.eskom.co.za (English)
  18. ^ Eskom: Drakensberg Pumped Storage Scheme . on www.eskom.co.za (English)
  19. ^ DWA: Tugela-Vaal-Project . 1978. on www6.dwa.gov.za  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www6.dwa.gov.za  
  20. ↑ a b Rand Water: Core Business . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  21. ^ Eskom, Generation Communication: Drakensberg Pumped Storage Scheme . on www.eskom.co.za ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eskom.co.za
  22. ^ Rand Water: Purification Process . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  23. ^ Rand Water: Storage System Management . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  24. ↑ City of Johannesburg: Johannesburg water . on www.johannesburgwater.co.za (English)
  25. ^ A b Rand Water: Infrastructure . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  26. ^ South African Government: Government on water scarcity and drought . News from November 13, 2015 at www.gov.za (English), accessed on July 31, 2016
  27. ↑ Rand Water: Rand Water Academy . on www.randwater.co.za (English)
  28. ^ South African Government News Agency: Molewa launches Rand Water Academy . News from October 12, 2012 on www.sanews.gov.za (English)