Water Recharge Project
01/07/2019 -
What is Water Re-Charge?
Groundwater recharge, deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process, where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer.
What happens if the groundwater is not recharged?
If a well/borehole is pumped at a faster rate than the aquifer is recharged by precipitation or other underground flow, then water levels over time will run dry. This can also happen during an extreme drought which we’ve encountered over the last couple of years in the Western Cape.
Why are re-charge areas so important?
Recharge is crucial for the ongoing replenishment of aquifers and their sustainable use. Recharge areas thus require protection.
Why is this so important to ACA Threads?
Leading up to the water crisis of 2017/18 in the Western Cape we became aware of the need for us to have a reliable source of water for our manufacturing plant. Plans commenced to have two boreholes drilled on our property and to install a water-purification plant, which would give quality water for our Dyehouse; thereby ensuring that we remain operational even in times when heavy water restrictions are implemented and that we do not put additional strain on the already tenuous supply of water from our dams.
In conjunction with the borehole project we looked at how we can contribute towards the sustainability of our environment, in particular our ground water supply. Our fundamental concern was that we might be depleting our ground water supply over time. Hence, we decided to implement a Water Re-Charge program. This is done by creating a catchment area of the rainwater from the roofs of our buildings and the roads on our premises, leading it into a dam and letting it trickle down back into the ground, thereby recharging our aquifer. We are pleased to announce this project is now completed and fully operational.
Brief Overview:
The design of the ACA Threads property lends itself to channelling all rainwater to one final stormwater drain.
The total water catchment area is about 8900m² of building roofs and roads. This makes it easy for rainwater harvesting to re-charge the borehole groundwater.
