Construction World February 2018

PROJECT PROFILE

Marli van Rooy, environmental officer at Concor Infrastructure with a Euphorbia that was successfully translocated.

Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment Plant providing fresh potable water for the offices and labour camp.

The plant recovery programme commenced early in the project with identification and safe removal of several unique protected plants such as Hoodia Gordonni (commonly known as Xhowa) which has been part of some of the local community’s diet for many centuries. Another protected species was the Skilpadtoontjie (Aloinopsis Luckhoffi), which is endemic to the area. Main plant populations not in the direction construction footprint were map tagged and made no go areas. The main strategy to conserve water was to reuse as much as possible, reducing the need to source additional water supply. Concor Infrastructure installed a modular water treatment plant on site, with a screening system to remove the heaviest solids and bacteriological rollers treated the remainder. No chemicals were used in this process. This allowed grey and black water to be treated on site and used for construction purposes. Most of the recycled water was used on the earthwork layers for the wind turbine bases. On average, the treatment plant cleaned 30 000 litres per day and the treated water was stored in two reservoirs for reuse. Dust suppression was critical to prevent a safety hazard, however the control system could not be water intensive due to the arid geography and the drought conditions. The deployment of the

environmentally friendly E-Cat dust suppression system on this main 60 km long access road provided the necessary intervention, further reducing the project’s initial water footprint plan. A specially constructed bioremediation facility was used on site to break down hydrocarbons to water and gas, eliminating the hazards associated with contaminated soil. This went well beyond the requirements of the Environmental Management Programme. Health & Safety Extremely careful planning and a focus on ongoing skills develop- ment and training, both in safety and competency, allowed the con- tractor to not only adhere to its construction programme, but also to ensure optimum safety on site. The project reached the milestone of one million Lost Time Incident Free (LTIF) hours in September 2016, and 1,3 million LTIF hours in January 2017. These accolades underpinned the level of commitment to safe work. Careful construction work planning, as well as control of materials and subcontractors, also played an important role. Significantly, the LTIF as at August 2017 stands at 2 million LTIF for the Consortium.

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD FEBRUARY 2018