Work on community water project starts

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By HELEN TARAWA
WORK has started on the pre-feasibility study for a water project for Tufi Station in Northern.
Fimali Ltd, a local engineering solutions company, has been tasked to carry out the feasibility study on sources from where can be piped into the station.
Funding for the project was made available through the National Planning and Monitoring Department by former minster Charles Abel, who made a commitment of K75,000.
Fimali government and community affairs project manager Maureen Mathers told The National that they had started work on the study a month ago.
She said from earlier work they found that Tufi relied on rainfall and during the dry season all water sources had dried up.
Mathers said the best water source was at Sosofara, about 3km from the Tufi Station, so it would be costly. “It has taken about a month and a report has been submitted to local MP Richard Masere.
“Most of what we saw for the water project hardly will happen with only streams around Tufi,except for bore water which needs the Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) to do site assessment. When they come in and pickout the location with underground streams, we can drill and its good water that’s close to town,” Mathers said.
She said the option of desalination, converting sea water into fresh water, was also being considered and that could feed a lot of communities in the area.
She said for Kabuni to Komoa villages, there’s a water source further up, about 3km, that could feed all of ward 12 to Baga village.
Mathers said the population around the area was 895 and within the Tufi Station 950 – including ward 13.
She said they hoped to submit the final report to Masere at the end of this month or mid next month.
“We collect water samples which we send to Australia for analysing and it takes three weeks for the report to get back to us.
“Based on that the report, the manufacturers in Australia will start designing the plant for the station. It’s a long process and we will sort that out once we get a full contract approved by the Ijivitari District Development Authority.”