Today, Phase II of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project reached a historic milestone with the successful closure and diversion of the Senqu River, downstream of its confluence with the Khubelu River.
This was marked with the completion of the building of a pre-coffer dam which will ensure that the river flows into the main diversion tunnel – a 9m wide and 960m long tunnel, which is one of two diversion tunnels constructed as part of Phase II advance infrastructure from 2019 to 2021.
The river diversion will ensure that a section of the Senqu is dry, where the construction of the coffer dam will take place. The Coffer Dam is a temporary structure that will allow the river to be drained, in preparation for the construction of the main Polihali Dam, a CFRD which will stand at the height of 165m. It is expected that the coffer dam construction will take approximately two months, then the construction of the main Polihali Dam foundation will commence in earnest, and is expected to take 5 years to complete.
This is one of the initial major milestones of the dam contract, following the contract award in October 2022.
Present to witness this first use of the diversion tunnels, was the LHDA Chief Executive, Mr Tente Tente, Polihali Manager Gerard Mokone, Public Relations Manager Mpho Brown, Polihali staff, the Project Management Unit(PMU), representatives of MAM JV, the consultants supervising the construction of the Polihali Dam, the Dam’s main contractor SUN JV’s management, the JV partners and workers.
The official celebration to mark this milestone with key stakeholders and partners is slated for the coming week on a date yet to be shared.
The LHDA family is proud of this milestone and congratulates the LHDA employees, PMU, consultant and contractor teams on the ground working hand in hand to bring Phase II of the LHWP to life. The LHDA further extends gratitude to the communities in Mokhotlong and across the project area, for their immense support and collaboration throughout all the project’s works.
Picture:TCTA