New Projects

uThukela Water (Proprietary) Limited (“UTW”) has initiated plans to upgrade, refurbish, and augment the Tayside Abstraction Works and the Biggarsberg Water Treatment Works (WTW). These upgrades are part of a strategic effort to meet current water demand and extend the infrastructure’s design life by at least 30 years. The projects are critical and must adhere to the stipulated timelines in the scoping report to ensure that immediate supply needs are met, and that the infrastructure is operationally ready when the Ncandu Dam becomes functional. These efforts form part of UTW’s broader water management strategy to ensure the system meets demand, improves operational reliability, and complies with required operational standards.

EPM has been appointed by uThukela Water to develop, raise finance, construct and implement the upgrade of the Biggarsberg from 15 to 25 ml/day to the value of ZAR 854 million.

To augment fresh water supplies to Amajuba District, a new dam, Ncandu dam has been proposed on the Ncandu River.

A new dam on a tributary of the Ncandu River has been investigated in other studies and was considered for this study. The catchment commanded by this proposed dam is 54.80 km2 and it is mainly mountainous terrain. The only land use in the area are relatively small areas of afforestation comprising 0.9 km2 and alien vegetation of 0.8 km2. As the proposed, Ncandu Dam catchment is mountainous, these areas of afforestation and alien vegetation have been assumed to be downstream of the proposed site.

The proposed dam has 7.68 million m3/a firm yield without EWR and 5.04 million m3/a firm yield with EWR according to the Royal Haskoning report. The dam wall is estimated to be 41 meters high, with total capacity of 19.5 million m3.

Furthermore, the Buffalo River Water Supply Scheme reached its 30-year design life in 2015 as per uThukela Water annual report. The current demand exceeds the capacity of the existing infrastructure, necessitating further upgrades to increase its capacity to meet present and future demands. The upgrades should be designed to mitigate the loss of pumping time due to load-shedding and match the maximum capacity of the existing high-lift raw water rising main.

As part of the new Dam, EPM has been appointed by uThukela Water to develop, raise finance, construct and implement the New Ncandu Dam and a 40 ml/day Water Treatment Plant to the value of ZAR 3.2 billion.

The project located in the North-Western corner of KwaZulu-Natal, bordering on the Free State Province and Mpumalanga Province. The area comprises four local municipalities: Newcastle, Emadlangeni, eNdumeni, and Dannhauser. The main transportation routes linking the district to its surrounds are the N11, which is the alternative route to Johannesburg from Durban, and the rail line, which is the main line from the Durban harbour to Gauteng, with and Area of 7 102km. The towns include Charlestown, Dannhauser, Hattingspruit, Newcastle, Utrecht, Glencoe, and Dundee.

uThukela Water as the Water Service Provider is mandated by all the constitution to deliver clean, reliable, sustainable, adequate and economic potable water to each shareholder municipality within their jurisdiction. Thus, the project objectives are listed below.

•  Provide access to reliable basic water supply that is adequate, safe, economic and sustainable;

•  Promote growth of existing businesses and encourage the setting up of new enterprises and thus upgrading the economic status of the beneficiary communities;

•  Promoting good health of beneficiary communities;

•  Communities dedicate more time to economic activities as they do not have to spend a lot of time fetching water from distant water sources, and

•   During construction, improve socio-economic status of the beneficiary communities through job creation

As part of the new WTW next to the existing Ntshingwayo Dam Wall, the client has mandated EPM to develop, raise finance, construct and implement the new 150 ml/day Water Treatment Plant to the value of ZAR 3.7 billion.