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dam-l Skuifraam Dam moves ahead/LS
This is from the June 1999 issue of "World Water and Environmental Engineering":
SA Government to move on Cape dam
The South African government is close to appointing advisors for the ZAR760m ($120m) BOT Skuifraam Dam and water supply scheme near Cape Town.
THe first phase of the project, to be built near Franschoek, needs to be finished by 2003 while the dam will have to be completed by Sept. 2007 to ensure water supply to the peninsula.
South Africa's Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) says that the Skuifraam scheme will boost the yield of the Rivier-sonderend-Berg river water scheme, releasing irrigation water along the Berg from the new scheme rather than from the system of tunnels already in place.
Financing is complicated however, as a simple increase in water tariffs to meet the cost of a scheme only used part of the time is likely to be opposed. On current predictions, it is unlikely that Cape Town will need the extra Skuifraam water in wet seasons.
Tenders for the project will not be released until the means of paying for the BOT scheme is finalized.
The dam will retain a reservoir of 126 million cubic meters of water. The supplementary scheme will divert water from the Berg River during the South African winter months into a small off-channel balancing dam through an 8.7km long, 1.5m diameter pipeline tothe still-to-be-built Skuifraam dam pumping station.
end
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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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