30 boats were trapped in water hyacinths in Hartbeespoort Dam, in December last year.
An urgent warning was issued to boaters about the safety risks posed by floating ‘islands’ of hyacinth, subsequent to the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) spending four hours, to rescue people from trapped boat in hyacinth, on December 11th.
This week, Magalies Water, represented by Spokesperson, David Magae and Professor Vhahanghwele Masindi, alongside Heiner Dominick from Blue Planet and Chris Stephan of Moleaer, an American-based company responsible for nanobubble technology, said their focus is to address the hyacinth problem and to also address the state of raw water in the dam.
Preliminary investigations, Magalies Water, said in a statement, have revealed that upstream sources of pollution continue, which is bad news for the quality of water in the dam.
Sources of pollution upstream, include dumping of rubbish, non-compliance by industries.
There is also poor management of waste water treatment plants, thus causing untreated water to flow back to the environment.
Now, Magalies Water, aims to not only eradicate hyacinth through manual harvesting, but has employed technology that seeks to remove it completely.
“The nanobubble technology will be used to put back lost oxygen, once the plants are removed, thereby restoring the water quality to its natural state.
Nanobubbles are 70-120 nanometers in size, 2500 times smaller than a single grain of salt and are formed using gas and injected into liquid. Due to their size, nanobubbles exhibit unique properties that improve numerous physical, chemical, and biological processes.”
The project has been contracted for a period of three years.
The NSRI said in December to the Kormarant, that the hyacinth covers a whopping 30% of the dam surface, according to NSRI Hartbeespoort station commander Arthur Crewe.
Picture: Magalies Water