Neckartal Dam completed … work on Ohangwena aquifer begins

THE construction of the Neckartal Dam in the //Karas region, which cost over N$5,7 billion, has finally been completed, agriculture minister Alpheus !Naruseb has announced.

!Naruseb made the announcement in Windhoek on Thursday at the handover of rural water supply and sanitation functions to 13 regional councils where he also announced that work on testing the water in the Ohangwena aquifer had started.

He said Khomas was omitted from the water decentralisation exercise as its rural areas now fall under the Windhoek municipality.

“I am pleased to announce that the long awaited Neckartal Dam is now complete and it will start capturing rainwater during the coming rainy season,” he said.

//Karas being a dry region, Eric Britton, the project’;s resident engineer, estimated in 2015 that it would take two years to fill the dam given that the Fish River only flows between January and May.

The dam is located in the Berseba constituency and its construction started in 2013. It has a height of 80 metres and a crest length of 518 metres.

It is expected to become the largest water storage dam in Namibia (storing about 960 million cubic metres) and is three times larger than the Hardap Dam near Mariental in the Hardap region.

Part of the government’;s green scheme policy, the Neckartal Dam project promises to create hundreds of jobs and generate millions of Namibia dollars for the economy of the //Karas region and the country at large.

The dam will supply water to a 5000-hectare irrigation scheme, to grow mainly fruit, and is expected to employ close to 800 people and over 1 000 more during harvesting periods.

First conceived by Germans more than 100 years ago, the idea of a dam on the Fish River near Keetmanshoop did not come to fruition until Namibia became independent in 1990. It then took more than two decades before a tender to build it was issued.

At the same occasion, !Naruseb also announced that the aquifer in Ohangwena is being tested and the first water storage facility is being constructed for further water testing.

The aquifer project, which is a beneficiary of a N$5,8 million grant from Germany’;s Federal Institute for Geoscience and Natural Resources, has the potential to provide safe potable water to the Ohangwena region and beyond.

“It is our sincere hope that these major water supply projects will significantly reduce the country’;s dependence on unsafe and unreliable water sources,” said !Naruseb.

The discovery of the massive 10 000-year-old aquifer, has brought renewed hope for the supply of water to the Ohangwena region and the rest of the country and it is also expected to spur economic development in the region.

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