Hermanus
Umvoto was appointed by Overstrand Local Municipality (LM) in 2001 to proceed with a groundwater investigation and exploration to augment the water supply to the growing town of Hermanus. After completing the drilling and testing programme at Gateway Wellfield and the surrounding area in the mid-2000s, with groundwater abstraction being initiated from the fractured Peninsula Aquifer of the Table Mountain Group (TMG), at the same time, a monitoring programme was developed and implemented using new monitoring boreholes and existing surface/groundwater-related infrastructure. Further to the successful establishment and operation of the Gateway Wellfield for several years, Umvoto assisted the Overstrand LM to monitor and operate the Camphill and Volmoed Wellfields in the Hemel en Aarde Valley. Umvoto continues to offer their services as groundwater specialists to the municipality through on-going wellfield operation and management support, groundwater and ecological monitoring as well as support with legislative compliance and wellfield expansion. Groundwater constitutes up to 25% of Hermanus’s current water supply (and planned up to 50% in the near future) ensuring that the town has been water secure through the 2009-2011 Southern Cape drought and the 2015-current Western Cape drought.
Stanford
Umvoto has been contracted by the Overstrand Local Municipality (LM) since 2007 as the Professional Service Provider (PSP) to undertake the water resource development and management of the Stanford Aquifer. The main aim of the project is to secure groundwater as a long-term option for municipal water supply of Stanford and manage it sustainably on behalf of the LM. The Stanford Aquifer is at present (and likely to remain in the future) the sole source of supply of potable water to the town, as well as for farmers and other users in the area.
Groundwater from the primary aquifer is pumped from two sources namely “The Eye”, a spring (at which Umvoto upgraded the abstraction infrastructure) and the Kouevlakte Wellfield (developed by Umvoto) to a storage reservoir, from which it is fed to the municipal water reticulation system.
