BULAWAYO Zimbabwes second largest city needs to lower its water consumption to less than 120 000 cubic metres a day, or the city's four operational supply dams will run dry by late December, a Bulawayo City Council (BCC) official has said.Speaking at the City Hall car park after a Water Conservation march held last week, the city’s Acting Director of Engineering Services, Ian Mthethwa, said the city’s operational dams were 42 per cent full and may run dry in late December.
“Unless the consumption is lowered we may run short of water in late December. All the three dams, except Insiza, will run dry in early December. We need to use less than 120 000 cubic metres of water a day. Each household has an allocated ration of water per day but some households are using far much more than the allocation. Currently, as a city, we are using 135 000 cubic metres per day,” he said.
Insiza dam is 72,63 per cent full, Inyankuni 7.72 per cent, Lower Ncema 70,07 per cent, and Umzingwane 11,97 per cent.
Upper Ncema was decommissioned last week and is 2,18 per cent full.
The amount of water abstracted is dependent on the dam level, which is the pressure head, of these dams. A drop in the water level means that less water is abstracted,” he said.
Mthethwa said at the current rates of abstraction it is expected that Inyankuni dam will be decommissioned next followed by Umzingwane dam, Lower Ncema and Insiza dam respectively.
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