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dam-l Flooding from Botswana water project/LS



The maker of the faulty pipe in this case was, for a time, working to get contracts on the Namibian plan to pipe water from the Okavango Delta. 

Francistown Road flooded after water bursts from pipe line
The North South Carrier Water Project - already seven months behind
schedule - has suffered another setback following last week’s accident when
millions of litres of water burst through an open valve near Dibete damaging
the Gaborone-Francistown road.

The water burst was caused by a valve which was left open while the pipe
line was being filled with water from the Letsibogo Dam - 250 kilometres
away near Mmadinare.

According to a press release issued by Mr Balisi Khupe, Project Coordinator
of the North South Carrier, the water ripped a 6,5 metre long, 3 metre wide
hole in the road to the depth of one metre..

The accident happened on Thursday and the road was temporarily closed until
the contractor bulldozed a detour round the damaged section.

Costs of the damage are not yet known but “all reasonable measures are being
taken to minimise the possibility of a similar incident occurring during the
North South Carrier Water Project,” the release said.

Mr T. Moshaga Assistant Project Coordinator said the water loss was an
‘unintentional accident’ and no one would be held responsible.

The North South Carrier Water Project pipe line has been plagued with
difficulties after some sections of the pipe manufactured by the Flowtite
plant (managed by Owens Corning) in Phakalane started leaking.

The project was scheduled to be completed by January this year at the cost
of P1.2 billion. However, Project Co-ordinator, Mr. Balisi Khupe told The
Gazette that the main reasons for the delay has been the testing of the
pipes. He said this took time because some pipes, mostly the GRPs, were
leaking, and had to be removed and replaced.

Mr Khupe said they now anticipate the project will be complete by mid
October . However, the delays will have pushed the costs over the P1,2
billion. He said these additional costs would be shared between the project
and the contractors because some of the problems were beyond the control of
the contractors. He gave the example of flooding after heavy rains and
fluctuations in the exchange rates between the South African and Botswana
currencies and the US dollar.

Letsibogo dam is around 14% full with which Mr Khupe said was enough to test
the system.

When the 100 million cubic litre dam was commissioned in 1997 it held 10
million cubic litres of water. Through evaporation, this had dropped to six
million litres by September last year but it has now gone up to 14 million
cubic litres.

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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program, 
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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