From Fungai Lupande in Bindura

Mazowe River rises north of Harare and flows northeast past Bindura Town, and thereafter forms part of the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique on its final journey to the Zambezi River.

Misnamed Mazoe by white settlers who failed to pronounce its original Shona name Manzou, in the wet season, the river was known for becoming a raging torrent, often breaking its banks and causing damage to local communities and farms.

Today, the river has dried up owing to more than 20 years of being ripped, raped and violated by gold panners. In its silence, it protects and holds back the precious liquid.

The river and its tributaries have been common site of gold panners for more than two decades and the damage is there for all to see.

Today, the town of Bindura that relied wholly on Mazowe River is facing water problems. Women wake up as early as 2am to queue for water at boreholes and unprotected wells. Council can no longer pump water from the river.

It is now a pale shadow of its past frothing self. Gullies, holes, rubble and sand have taken over. Where there were huge pools, it is now all sand.   

Bindura residents have now endured more than a week without running water, forcing mostly women and children to look for alternative unsafe water sources, wait for long hours at public boreholes or pay $5 per bucket to homeowners with boreholes.

This is an unfortunate situation at a time when people are required to maintain best hygienic practices due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The root cause is that Mazowe River is struggling to carry and deliver relief water supplied by Mwenje Dam, 40km away, to the water treatment plant on the outskirts of Bindura town. This is caused by deep holes and ditches created by illegal gold panners which are sucking up all the water before it reaches its destination.

Zimbabwe National Water Authority (zinwa) released 10 cubic litres per second from Mwenje Dam into Mazowe River on Thursday last week and it took six days for the water to reach the abstraction point at the water treatment plant.

This is one of the many weeks that people endured dry taps due to the irregular supply of treated water.  Bindura is a small town with a population of around  125 000. Unfortunately, Bindura Municipality is using water treatment chemicals equivalent to quantities used in the country’s second largest city, Bulawayo. We are at the beginning of June, and it is a long way until we reach the rainy season in November. When people talk about the bad state of Mazowe River due to alluvial gold panning, it may sound like a broken record, but to people in Bindura the reality is that they might wake up one day to dry taps for good.

This situation is not peculiar to Bindura town, but also Shamva, whose source of drinking water is also Mazowe River.

Mazowe River has not only suffered violation at the hands of gold panners, but also some farmers who create their own pools and divert the water into their fields.

Authorities in Bindura have been running around to find a lasting solution to the dilemma. Mwenje Dam was initially identified as a possible solution to the water crisis, but the dam will not last until September due to the rate at which water is being used.

According to the Bindura town clerk Mr Shangwa Mavesera, the permanent solution is to expedite construction of Bindura Dam.

Although construction of Bindura Dam is a priority, the dam is only at 20 percent completion, making the project a long term solution to the water crisis currently faced in the town. 

The immediate plan for Bindura Municipality is the construction of a pipeline to Masembura Dam in Bindura South, 25km away from the water treatment plant.

Masembura Dam is 100 percent full and not much water is drawn from it.

“The state of Mazowe River is shocking. The river is silted and dry. Recently water was released from Mwenje Dam into Mazowe River so that we could access the water at the treatment plant. The water ended up in ditches dug at the middle of the river by illegal gold panners. Sometimes when the water manages to reach our abstraction point, it will be very dirty due to siltation. We can only desilt the area where our water pump draws water, but the whole river is silted.

“It is not sustainable for us to get water supplies from Mwenje Dam and we are not sure if the water is enough to take us up to the rainy season. With no immediate plan for the completion of Bindura Dam, our priority now is the construction of a pipeline to Masembura Dam,” he said.

Mr Mavesera said the costs of building the pipeline is exorbitant and a loan facility will be a shot in the arm for the local authority.

“If we are able to get a loan facility we will be able to offset it using the money we will save in buying water treatment chemicals. The normal quantity of water treatment chemicals we require per day are five bags, but because Mazowe River is heavily polluted we end up using up to 25 bags. If we are to save 20 bags per day, it translates to 600 bags per month which cost to over $1 million, which we can use to pay back the loan.”

Two months ago Bindura Municipality installed a new water pump worth $3.5 million, but it was damaged within days after it started sucking mud because of panning activities which were happening 20 metres away. The water was heavily polluted, forcing council to use 25 bags of aluminium sulphate and another 25 bags of HTH, instead of five bags to treat the water.

The police have moved in and established a permanent base at the treatment plant as well as increase visibility along the river.

Mr Mavesera said the collaboration has yielded positive results with the council now using seven bags of treatment chemicals down from 25 bags.

Mazowe River is also the source of irrigation water for farmers in Mashonaland Central province, which has a target of 18 000 hectares of winter wheat.

For a long time, the police have been conducting raids but the illegal gold panning activities persisted.

Officer Commanding Mashonaland Central Senior Assistant Commissioner David Mahoya said illegal settlement at farms along the river were harbouring gold panners.

He said the problem of illegal miners is concentrated along the river as they follow gold deposits.

“We are going to engage farm owners along the river to ensure that illegal settlers are removed,” he said.