By Correspondent
Bulawayo City Council is pushing ahead with the construction of the US$100 million Glass Block Dam and is meeting with potential investors this week.
Mayor David Coltart revealed this is saying the new dam will be known as Bopoma Dam.
“This morning the City of Bulawayo takes an important further step forward in securing our future water supplies.
“We (are meeting) with potential private partners regarding a feasibility report submitted to us concerning a new dam.”
“(It’s) commonly known as Glassblock but which may well be referred to in future as Bopoma Dam.
When complete this dam will add 70% more capacity to Bulawayo’s water reserves.
Coltart added that they are moving with urgency as the dam “is a critical component in our medium term plans to secure Bulawayo’s water supplies.
Glassblock Dam is a proposed reservoir on the Umzingwane River with a capacity of 14 million cubic metres.
The construction will include a 41km pipeline connecting to the Lower Ncema Dam.
It would take 30 months to complete.
Private investors have proposed to construct the dam as an alternative water source.
Bulawayo Dams
They will add to the city’s six supply dams-Inyankuni, Mtshabezi, Insiza, Lower Ncema, Umzingwane, and Upper Ncema.
Insiza Dam was the last to be constructed in 1975 just a year after the construction of the Upper Ncema dam.
Inyankuni, the city’s largest dam with a carrying capacity of 80 million cubic metres, was constructed in 1965.
Umzingwane was built in 1956 with Lower Ncema the city’s oldest dam having been constructed in 1943.
Bulawayo residents continue to endure prolonged water cuts, sometimes more than a week in some suburbs.
The situation is worsened by the vandalism of transformers and boreholes at Epping Forest and Nyamandlovu.
This has reduced the pumping capacity from 20 ML to 4 ML a day.
The situation has adversely affected 60 000 residents who rely on water from the aquifer.
