ANNEXURE 1
Neckertal Dam: Making a Desert Bloom
Salini lmpregilo is building Namibia's largest dam to irrigate land for fruit cultivation.
In the southernmost region of Namibia, cranes, trucks and tractors are swerving, rumbling and
ploughing to make a desert bloom. They are part of a project to build a dam that will capture the
waters of a river and use it to irrigate the surrounding land to grow fruit. Part of the government's
Green Scheme Policy, the Neckartal Dam project promises to create hundreds of jobs and generate
millions of Namibian dollars for the economy of the Karas region and the country at large. This is the
single largest infrastructure development project undertaken by the Namibian government, to date.
In a budget statement made in May 2013 when work on the dam was just getting started, then-
Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila highlighted the importance of the project and how it
exemplified the government's efforts to improve the quality of life of its citizens. "Provision of bulk
and potable water remains a core priority to ensure adequate supplies for households and industry,"
she said. "(One of the) major projects envisaged (is) the construction of Neckartal Dam." It is also
envisaged, that the dam will provide hydro-electrical power to the region and will relief the pressure
on the Namibian electricity grid.
Fabrizio Lazzarin, project manager of Salini lmpregilo SpA, was awarded the N$ 2, 8 million building
contract in 2013. Due to late and non-payment by government, Salini halted operations on more than
one occasion meaning that the total completed cost ofthe dam (as specified in the Project Scope) will
stand closer to N$ 5, 7 million.
Having completed the excavation of some 800,000 cubic metres of earth and rock on the river bed
and the construction of abutments on either side of it, workers have been building the foundation of
the dam, one layer of concrete at a time with the use of earth-moving equipment. This method is
called roller-compacted concrete (RCC),which is faster and economically advantageous in respect to
other methods. The construction of the dam requires the diversion of the river in two phases. Phase I
involves the construction of a temporary enclosure called a cofferdam on the left side of the river.
Standing at a height of 10 metres, it will allow workers to complete the excavations in safety, prepare
the foundations of the dam, start pouring the reinforced concrete and build a diversion culvert, which
allows water to flow under its structure. Phase II will see the deviation of the river through this
diversion culvert so as to allow workers to complete the job on the right side of the riverbed.
With a future height of about 80 metres and a crest length of 518 metres, Neckartal will be a curved
gravity dam. It will have an intake tower housing pipes, valves and gates to bring the water captured
by the future reservoir to a chamber with two LS-megawatt Francisturbines.
The future reservoir will have a holding capacity of 880 million cubic metres of water, the equivalent
of 300,000 Olympic pools. Its surface area will cover nearly 40 square kilometres. In describing the
project to Namibian President Hage G. Geingob during an official visit to the site in October 2015,
Britton said the color of the water in the reservoir would be the deepest of blue. "It will be beautiful."
Neckartal will take water from the reservoir to produce energy with its Francisturbines for a pumping
station at an abstraction weir - an obstruction that allows some water to flow over it - located 13
kilometres downstream.
Running 360 metres in length and 9 metres in height, the weir will capture the water sent by the
pumping station and send it another 10 kilometres along a steel pipe to a holding dam with a reservoir
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