Heritage Cases

The need to upgrade the sanitation infrastructure of Ugie was identified as early as 2001. Ugie’s formal municipal sanitation system is generally poorly developed. The residential areas have conservancy tanks which are currently not being properly maintained and are overflowing. The poor sanitation infrastructure imposes a health risk to the residents of Ugie and is also not environmentally friendly. It is highly recommended that a proper waterborne sewer system be implemented in the area and the sewage be conveyed to a new wastewater treatment facility. The single existing wastewater treatment facility has a capacity of 0.6ML/day and only serves Prentjiesberg which has an estimated sewage flow of 0.24ML/day. A waterborne sanitation system is provided in Prentjiesberg which is a residential area located on the south-western side of Ugie town (Figure 2; Appendix 13). The system consists of a sewer network and a gravity main conveying sewerage to the wastewater treatment facility. The treatment facility is located on the south-eastern side of the Ugie town (Figure 2; Appendix 13), it comprises of inlet works, aeration basin, anaerobic basin, clarifier, chlorination channel and sludge drying beds. The components’ properties are further described in the following section. The capacity of the facility is 0.6ML/day. Ugie park extension and Ugie Park (Yellow lines – Figure 2) is served by a conservancy tank system, the sewage is extracted from the community conservancy tanks by honey sucker tankers and discharged in the Ugie oxidation pond system. However, these tanks are old, some broken, some inaccessible and some leaching into the environment – endangering the health of the residents. The Prentjiesberg wastewater treatment plant was designed as an BNR extended aeration activated sludge process to serve the PG Bison housing units. The wastewater treatment process consists of two grit channels for grit removal. The influent enters the plant from the grit channels into two anaerobic basins. From the anaerobic basins the mixed liquor is pumped to an anoxic basin. There is a recycle stream from the anoxic basin to the anaerobic basins. The mixed liquor is then pumped to the aeration section where aeration takes place through bubbling medium sized bubbles through the mixed liquor. There is a recycle stream from the aeration section to the anoxic basin. From the aeration section the mixed liquor is pumped to the clarifier. There is a recycle stream from the clarifier to the anaerobic basins. The sludge in the clarifier is pumped to the drying beds. The clear water flows from the clarifier to the chlorination channel where disinfection takes place. The final effluent flows from the chlorination channel into the Wildebeest River. This is how it should function in theory, however, the Prentjiesberg pumpstation is vandalised, therefor sewage flows directly into the adjacent dam, polluting the environment. Whatever sewage does manage to flow to the Ugie WWTW also flows, untreated, directly into the Wildebeest river, polluting the environment and endangering the health of Ugie residents. 1.1 Proposed infrastructure A sewer reticulation network is proposed for the Ugie town and surrounding townships to replace the existing system of conservancy tanks. Phase 1 will cover Ugie park and Ugie park extension and will compromise of the following: • 160mm uPVC – 10493.116m • 200mm uPVC – 1178.477 m • 300mm Concrete/uPVC – 510m • Rising Main – 200mm HDPE – 703m • Manholes – 259 • New Pumpstation – 250-300kl In addition to the sewer reticulation network, gravity mains are proposed to convey the sewage from the source to a new pumpstation (250-300kl), from there a rising main will take the sewage to the existing wastewater treatment plant. The total length of the main pipelines is 3714m (315mm uPVC Class 34). Pumpstations are also proposed for the pumping of the collected sewer from the collection sumps to the wastewater treatment facility.