Jeffares & Green Water Division working on projects worth multi-billions - Borehole Water Journal , July 2009
J&G grows its water division
Twenty years ago Jeffares & Green were known as top road and rail engineers, and not as a water engineering company, but the transition since that time has been dramatic. With the 1994 political changes the company was aware of the tremendous task facing government to address backlogs in water and sanitation and wanted to be part of the situation.
The first step was to join forces with a world leader in water engineering, Parkman UK, which led to the launch of Jeffares & Green Parkman (JGP) in 1995. At the time there was a delivery backlog of safe water and sanitation to 16 million people. This new division of J&G became a major stakeholder and roleplayer in the AquAmanzi Consortium, and between 1997 and 2004 was responsible for delivering potable water supplies and VIP sanitation systems to over 1 million people in rural KwaZulu-Natal.
As J&G’s water division skills base and capacity rapidly expanded, the water division secured bulk water supply, planning, design and construction projects with many of the larger bulk water suppliers, such as Durban Metro Water, Mhlatuze Water, Umgeni Water and the Johannesburg City Council.
In the municipal water sector, the division was also engaged in the Water Services Development Plans and Section 78 studies to determine the optimum solution for municipalities to operate and maintain water supply and sanitation systems.
Since the start of the new millennium, the water division has grown still further and an important step taken in this period was to buy out our international partners to meet the policy objectives of being an independent South African company with excellent BEE credentials. In recent times the requirement, particularly be government departments, for expertise in institutional, environmental and water resources management expertise has grown, and J&G has grown its water division skills base accordingly.
Water quality
Water quality has become an issue of serious concern recently, and J&G is currently working on two projects with the Water Research Commission. The first is an analysis of water laboratories throughout the country to identify capacity gaps, laboratory statistics, staff issues and testing methodologies. These have been compiled into a survey of national laboratory facilities. The project will eventually result in the development of a tool, both for Water Services Authorities and for the regulator, to enable improved water quality testing and also to improve laboratory coverage of the country and capacity within the laboratories.
The second project involves the development of an innovative integrated water quality management model. The model addresses the current “split” between water resource quality management and drinking water quality management. A paper arising out of this project has been accepted for platform presentation at the National Drinking Water Quality Conference and at the first International Water Association Development Congress in Mexico City. Lee Boyd of Golder Associates, co-author of the paper and project leader, will be the presenter of the paper, which is entitled “A Conceptual Model for Integrated Water Quality Management in South Africa”.
Another cutting-edge project is being undertaken by Jeffares & Green’s Cape Town wastewater specialists. They are working to improve the quality of storm water in order to improve the quality of marine water at the point of discharge.
Mozambique, Nacala Dam
Jeffares & Green, the firm of consulting engineers, has just signed a US$ 2.7 million contract with Mozambique to carry out rehabilitation on the Nacala Dam, the main supply of water to the Nampula province. The contract, signed by Andy Pepperell, a director of Jeffares & Green (J&G), and Paulo Fumane, director of Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Mozambique, was awarded after an international tendering process.
The contract will permit the augmentation of the capacity of the dam to 21 million cubic metres, benefiting around 70% of the population in the Nacala area. At this time, the dam has a capacity of 14 million cubic metre of water and supplies only 20% of the population.
The Nacala Dam is in a state of disrepair, and the reduction of the water level since 2005 have seen a portion of the local population relying on cisterns.
J&G will be assisted on the project by two main sub-contractors namely, Lamont (Zimbabwe) and Conseng (Mozambique). The hydrology, geotechnical engineering and environmental services will be undertaken by Terratest, a specialist associated company of J&G.
In total, a team of 34 engineers, hydrologists, social and environmental specialists will be assigned to the project which will be undertaken in three phases: feasibility studies, followed by the detailed design and tendering process, and finally, construction.
“The project will investigate several key aspects,” said Andy Pepperell. “The first will be to determine the current condition of the dam to check its safety factors. The second will be to raise the dam capacity so as to increase its yield and to provide additional water for environmental purposes. And the third will be to redesign and reconstruct the dam spillway to ensure that it is fully compliant with international dam safety requirements. The feasibility study will start in June 2009 and construction is expected to commence towards the end of 2010” he said.
Work on the dam is expected to cost US$11.7 million, expanding the Nacala water supply system will cost a further US$10 million and reconstruction of the waste water collection system will cost another US$17.2 million.
MCA Mozambique is managed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US development aid agency set up by former US President, George W. Bush.
Botswana, Dikgathlong Dam
An important milestone has been reached in the construction of the Dikgathlong Dam, a project of the Botswana Department of Water Affairs (BDWA), namely the diversion of the flow of the Shashe River so that the dam wall can be built through the dry river bed during the winter season. The dam has been under construction for just under a year.
“A core trench excavation through a section of the Shashe River started at the beginning of May,” said Tom Spiers, the site representative of J&G in Botswana. “A diversion conduit has been successfully installed which runs parallel to but bypasses the river channel. This carries the dry-weather flow around the dam wall excavation,” he said.
The diversion has now been put into use by means of closing the upstream and downstream coffer dams, and the contractor is busy excavating the core trench through the now dry river-bed section. The aim is to bring the main clay core up to river-bed level by the end of the dry season, after which it will be suitably protected to allow the river to again flow along its natural course during the wet season.
J&G are the design and technical consultants on the Dikgathlong Dam project, in a joint venture with Bergstan and Gauff. Bergstan is the lead consultant, while Gauff is responsible for electrical and mechanical design.
At a cost of two billion Botswana pula (about US$300 million), provided by the Botswana government, the dam will not only be the largest source of water supply in Botswana but will also be used to establish and operate a new coal mine and a 3 600 MW power station at Mmamabula, approximately 130 km north of Gaborone. Since power will fed into the Eskom grid in South Africa, Dikgathlong Dam is, therefore, not only vital to Botswana but extremely important to South Africa as well. Empowerment of the dam is scheduled for October 2012.
Lesotho, Metolong project
In the Kingdom of Lesotho, the Lesotho Lowlands Bulk Water Supply project was completed at the end of October 2008, and J&G, who was part of an international joint-venture team working on the project, comprising SSI (Stewart Scott International), Fichtner (Germany), DHN Consultants (Holland) and GWC Consultants (Lesotho), was asked to put together a proposal for the preparation of a design-and-construct tender document for the Metolong Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW). This is to be followed with technical assistance to implement the project.
The project is being funded by a number of international funding agencies, such as the World Bank, European Union, Millennium Challenge Corporation and a group of Arab Banks, as well as the governments of Lesotho and South Africa.
Construction of the Metolong WWTW and Bulk Water Conveyance System is due to start in 2010.
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