The Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail Reporter
Harare City Council has embarked on an experimental water treatment research project that will see the introduction of two new chemicals aimed at improving water quality and reducing treatment costs.
The introduction of Poly Aluminium Chloride (PAC) chemicals — being sourced from China and Australia — will see the city embark on water treatment trials from January.
Alchlor Gold, manufactured in Australia, is currently being used in the United States and New Zealand.
Studies will be done on a pilot scale over the first six months of next year parallel to the current main line water production.
The research is meant to measure the effectiveness of the new chemicals as compared to the ones currentlyin use.
ln the event that the pilot project is successful, council will reduce the number of water treatment chemicals from nine to at least four, thereby cutting the water purification budget by about 50 percent.
Currently, Harare needs at least US$30 million annually for water treatment.
Harare City Council Department of Water director, Engineer Christopher Zvobgo said: “We will be starting the trials soon and the aim is to reduce the number of chemicals used to treat water to at least four.
“We want to reduce the cost of water treatment by at least 50 percent and as you know our water is heavily polluted, we also want to improve the water quality.”
Harare City Council director of works, Engineer Philip Pfukwa said council had signed an agreement with the Tongji University of China and Chinhoyi University of Technology to research on the water in the capital city.
“The principle under which the agreement was signed was to address the common challenge of the global climate change and water environment pollution to strengthen the south-south cooperation and improve the quality of drinking water in developing countries,” he said.
“Currently PAC is being used daily in China with good and stable performance, which had basically replaced the application of aluminium and ferric coagulants and improved the level of drinking water treatment technology in China.” Most research findings have condemned the quality of Harare’s water.
The local authority blames industries, petroleum companies and food outlets as the major polluters of the city’s water.
However, a 2014 survey conducted by the Environmental Management Agency revealed that Harare was the major polluter of the drinking water sources by discharging raw sewage.
