Corestruc
Rim of the immense reservoir.
Water focus; a priority
South Africa’ s water infrastructure is overloaded, owing mainly to the flood of people migrating to urban areas. Deteriorating municipal water treatment infrastructure is also a concern, brought about largely by a lack of coordination between government departments.
By Kim Kemp *
According to Consulting Engineers South Africa’ s( CESA) Bi-annual Economic and Capacity Survey( BECS), water infrastructure spend has been prioritised, not only to deal with the effects of the current drought, but also to lessen the effects going forward.“ Water is our second-biggest sector in the engineering industry,” the CEO of Industry Insights, Elsie Snyman, outlined in her presentation of the CESA report.
Water constitutes 20 % of government budget spend, she points out and adds,“ Since 2011, we are starting to see an increase in water becoming a bigger priority … water is almost more important than nuclear at this stage,” she stresses.
She outlines how the 2016 water budget was revised up for the 2017 budget, to include bulk infrastructure, as well as smaller maintenance and sanitation type projects.“ Water is certainly a bigger priority in terms of government spending,” she says.
The custodians of this crucial resource, therefore, are under constant pressure to build high-quality infrastructure quickly and efficiently.
Water infrastructure comes to Katlehong
Such a project was undertaken by Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality in Katlehong, which, together with Thokoza and Vosloorus, is the secondlargest township in Gauteng, after Soweto.
The municipality is delivering a new reservoir that will bring muchneeded relief to this high-density area. Consulting engineer TLS Engineers & Project Managers, as well as civil engineering contractors Civcon and QC4 Civils are collaborating on the project.
QC4 Civils’ contracts manager, Ettiene Coetzee, says this is the largest reinforced, post-tensioned ground reservoir to be built by the company.
Constructed with six 16.15m by 4.2m buttresses for post-tension anchors, the 35 mega-litre reservoir has an internal diameter of 54.4m, as well as wall height of 16.15m and wall
14 Water Sewage & Effluent July / August 2017