City of Cape Town Executive Mayor, Patricia de Lille on Tuesday commissioned a project to bring additional drinking water online from the Oranjezicht Main Springs Chamber and Molteno Reservoir.

The initiative, which is part of the city’s Water Resilience Plan, will see an additional two million litres per day of safe, clean drinking water added to the city’s bulk water network according to De Lille.

The project cost around R4.1 million from investigation to commissioning and involved refurbishing the existing but disused pipeline for drinking water purposes. The pipeline takes the water from natural springs to the Molteno Reservoir.

New chlorination equipment to dose the disinfectant along the pipeline linking it to the reservoir itself was also installed according to De Lille.

“Three springs feed into the main collection chamber in Oranjezicht, where water is collected before being conveyed via a 525 m long existing pipeline to the reservoir. The water is then chlorinated to bring it in line with the South African National Standard for drinking water (SANS 241),”the mayor explained.

Fast-tracking processes

De Lille said the city started investigating the possibility of using the springs as additional sources of drinking water in 2014. “Our Scientific Services Branch found that water from some of the springs was of a very high quality,” the mayor noted.

Speaking at the launch the mayor said the city is committed to doing everything it can to ensure that Cape Town has sufficient drinking water to see everyone through the upcoming summer months, and beyond.

“We will continue working on a range of augmentation plans, fast-tracking processes as much as possible to bring alternative sources of drinking water online, including desalination, ground water extraction, and water reuse as we build a water-resilient Cape Town. Together with the great water-saving efforts of residents, we will make it through this unprecedented drought,” she concluded.