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A borehole opposite Gateway Centre has put Hermanus on a world-wide network of scientific research.

This follows after Cape Town-based groundwater consultants Umvoto sunk the borehole five years ago when water blew out at more than 100 litres/second - one of the highest borehole yields in South Africa.

Some 1,5 million m³/year of underground water have now been added to the existing 2,8 million m³/year from the De Bos Dam, formerly the only water source for greater Hermanus.

The head of water systems at Umvoto, Dr Kornelius Riemann, says Umvoto focused on the Gateway wellfield area where several boreholes were drilled deep into the Peninsula aquifer, a layer of water-bearing, permeable rock capable of providing significant amounts of water.

The groundwater project, boasting cutting-edge technology, has cost some R5,5 M.

“We are now at the stage where we put the aquifer and monitoring system to the test,” said Riemann.

“We want to extract water from the aquifer continuously for at least several months to a year and see the response of the aquifer to measure the long-term sustainability.”

The water will be pumped into the reticulation system at Preekstoel. Umvoto research and technical director Dr Chris Hartnady added that the wellfield would also be monitored in a project involving the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory (HMO), the chief directorate: surveys and mapping (CDSM), the Water Research Commission (WRC) and the department of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University in Indiana, USA. The existing continuously-recording GPS station at the HMO will be supplemented with surplus GPS receivers on loan from the CDSM and equipped with new antennas bought with WRC funds.

All the data that is recorded around the aquifer will be relayed to Eric Calais, professor of geophysics in Indiana. This will enable the scientists to precisely measure the aquifer properties and how the water resource fluctuates because of factors like seasonal rainfall and pumping extraction.

Longer-term plans are to link this GPS monitoring to the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment mission (GRACE) that is measuring subtle changes in the gravity field all around the world on a monthly basis.

Twin satellites, launched in March 2002, are making detailed measurements of the earth's gravity field and these are leading to discoveries about the total amount of water stored in the earth's crust.

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