Netcare CBMH Water Use Licence Application
Netcare 911 (Pty) Ltd (Netcare) wishes to apply for a Water Use Licence in terms of the National Water Act, 1998 (Act No. 36 of 1998) (NWA) for water uses associated with the hospital’s Desalination Reverse Osmosis Plant which will provide the Netcare CBMH with potable water supply.
OMI Solutions (Pty) Ltd (OMI) has been appointed as the independent Environmental Assessment Practitioner (EAP) to undertake the Water Use Licence Application (WULA) process for the proposed Project.
Netcare Limited (Netcare) operates the CBMH situated in Cape Town’s City Centre, within the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. To ensure continued water supply to the hospital, Netcare developed a Desalination Reverse Osmosis Plant in 2019 to recycle water recovered from the hospital’s basement for use as potable water for all occupants of the hospital, including staff, patients, and service providers, etc. The Desalination Plant was implemented before the City of Cape Town’s “Day Zero” scenario as a risk mitigation strategy to ensure the hospital has sufficient water supply for business continuity as well as provide water supply to other Netcare hospitals in the City of Cape Town.
To manage the risk associated with the City of Cape Town’s “Day Zero”, Netcare constructed two sumps in the basement of the hospital located on Erf No. 247. One sump is currently dry, and the other is used to collect groundwater seepage. To prevent the basement from flooding, especially during high rainfall events, groundwater seepage in the sump is pumped to the Desalination Plant. The hospital currently treats less volumes of water than the intended capacity due to the “dewatering effect” of the building adjacent to the hospital and as such Netcare proposes to establish a borehole which will provide back-up water supply to the hospital. Inflow to the sump further reduced from March 2022 and was ascribed to construction activities in the surrounding interface area.
The hospital sought to improve their water security by developing groundwater supply. A borehole (Interface BH1) was drilled in May 2022 with the intention to supplement the groundwater seepage to the sump with groundwater abstracted from the borehole. The necessary pump and pipework infrastructure will be put in place to pump groundwater from Interface BH1 and the hospital sump on Erf No. 247. The abstracted groundwater and groundwater seepage will feed to the Desalination Plant. Following treatment, the treated water will be stored in an existing storage tank on the roof of the hospital from where it will be distributed to supply the hospital’s domestic and industrial water requirements. In the event of plant failure, the hospital will make use of municipal supply.
Documents are available for download
PLEASE NOTE: You will need a password to access the "View Downloads" page.
Before you click on the button below called "View Downloads",
please make sure you have registered and received your password first.
If you have already registered and have received your password,
click on “View Downloads”.