Is Bethal Dam Resort contributing to Bethal water problems?
“No water for the town, but I can fill the resort swimming pools.” This seems to be the message that the current proprietor of Bethal Dam Resort is sending to the Bethal community.
Bethal is plagued with problems, not only with electricity but also with water supply. Some residents have reported that they have been without water for over 8 weeks.
The officials from GMM are trying to “balance” the water to give all the residents equal opportunity to receive water but this is a mammoth task.
Bethal Rand Reservoir is the first to fill up but struggles to get past the 30% mark. Only this week was it reported that the reservoir was 80% full.
The Bulletin received complaints regarding water being pumped into the Bethal Dam Resort swimming pools. We were told that no chemicals were used by the resort to clean the pools but that the water was pumped into the Bethal dam and filled with fresh water on a weekly basis.
We investigated the situation and visited the site on several occasions. We spoke to the workers that confirmed the fact that the water is pumped out and fresh water is then pumped into the pool. The way they clean the pool is to pump the water out, scrub the pool and then pump new water in. On one of our visits, a pump was next to the kiddie’s pool and the level of the pool was very low.
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When we visited the pool, it was clear, given the state of the clogged-up pool drains, that the cleaning system is not functioning at 100%. We could not get a proper response on this yet as the proprietor, Shelly, did not respond to our letter.
During our investigations, we established, through very reliable sources, that the police instructed Shelly on one occasion at least not to use the fire hydrants for water. We also learned from reliable sources that officials from Govan Mbeki Municipality also instructed Shelly not to use water from the hydrants and taps. Apparently, this was done on several occasions.
During our last visit we were confronted by a very irate Shelly, she confirmed her identity, asking why we were trespassing. She refused to answer any of our questions but continued to accuse us of trespassing. Shelly later opened a case against us for trespassing at the local police station.
Shelly even said that we were recording her and they are residents from Bethal. We asked her to confirm if she was taking water without paying or if she was paying for this water to which we received no response. This was also asked in a follow-up letter with no response. The information at our disposal is that while she is renting the facility there is no water meter installed. This was not confirmed by the municipality yet.
Bethal residents have been complaining bitterly about the water situation exacerbated by the fact that they are experiencing double sessions of load-shedding. Both old-age homes had to scramble to get water for their residents.
GMM arranged a water truck to deliver water to the people, but several people complain of not being able to carry such a heavy burden and that the truck regularly passes them by. Several political parties arranged for water and even The Bulletin asked people in Secunda to supply water for the people in Bethal.
All this while water is being tapped into a large swimming pool with allegedly no payment for that water.
The swimming pool volume is approximately 300 000litres. This is not exactly the correct volume as a bit of guessing had to be done. According to Google Earth Pro, the diameter of the pool is approximately 16,5m and we estimate the average depth at 1,3m.
Peninsula Pool Renovations gives the formula to calculate the pool volume. It is diameter x diameter x average depth x 785 = Volume in Litres.
This means that the calculation should look like this: (16,5 x 16,5 x 1,3) x 785 = 277,831.125 litres.
If this is taken as roughly correct it means that 27 homes with 10000L JoJo tanks could have filled their tanks every week.
We would still like to offer Shelly a right of reply so that we can hear her side of the story as well