Water has become a scarce commodity not only for Namibia but for our neighbouring countries as well.
It is no secret that the City of Windhoek, in particular, has been facing a shortage of clean potable water since last year.
The prolonged drought has Namibia’s dams and catchment areas empty, and a water shortage crisis has loomed over Namibia for months. The effects of the drought have seen the City of Johannesburg, in South Africa, run out of sufficient water to quench the thirst of over four million residents. Johannesburg is now looking at ways in which it can satisfy the demand for water.
It was thus heart-warming to learn that the Namibian corporation tasked with managing this very scarce resource, NamWater, has made plans to pump water from Kombat to avert a water crisis in the central areas because of a paucity of inflows into the supply dams.
NamWater has plans to draw water from boreholes outside Grootfontein and pump it to the central areas, and should be commended for this bold initiative. The Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry of course with the blessing of central government also deserves praise. Had NamWater and central government not acted the consequences of a water crisis around the central areas would be too ghastly to contemplate.
Water levels in the storage dams supplying Windhoek have been dropping to precarious levels since 2015, and reached levels lower than after the devastating drought of 2013. The combined water levels in the three main dams providing the central areas with water are rapidly decreasing and the level of the Swakkopoort Dam stood at 14.8 percent this week. The water level is lower than this time last year.
The country still experiences a severe overall drought and predictions are that water in the dams will last until September.
Windhoek, Okahandja, Gobabis, Karibib and customers along the pipeline in Brakwater draw water from the same three supply dams.
Indeed, the vast underground water deposits at Kombat, previously seen as a curse by the copper mining sector, are a godsend for the arid central areas of Namibia that could run dry by September. Water would be pumped from Kombat to Okakarara and eventually to the Omatako Dam and then into the Von Bach Dam, from where it will be supplied to the central areas.
Kombat mine, which shut down nine years ago, has come in to help solve the country’s water shortage. New Era reported on the potential of Kombat supplying water to Namibia in June 2015.
Kombat is a wet mine, which was shut down in late 2007 after excessive flooding pushed production costs through the ceiling.