By Farai Chikore

CHINHOYI – THE Council’s Chaedza trunk sewer line has been vandalised, resulting in the road that links Cold Stream and town from the bridge rendered impassible because of rivers of sewage.
A mentally challenged man, who is around 40 years old, was responsible for the vandalism, which caused thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.
The man used to live under the bridge along Cold Stream River, where the gradient engineered trunk sewer main line was installed.
The man used a hammer and a steel bar to chisel away at the asbestos sewer pipe line and in the process completely vandalising it.
The main line connects raw sewer from Chaedza booster pump together with the other section of Cold Stream high-density area to Fernlea booster pump, which is behind Chinhoyi University of Technology Hotel.
The highly loaded sewer line started disposing effluent for three continuous days into the environment downstream of Cold Stream River, flowing into Hunyani River.
Davison Chimuseve from Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT), who witnessed the destruction, said he called Chinhoyi Ward 8 Councillor, Mukudzei Chigumbura, alerting him to what the mentally challenged man was doing.
In a telephone interview Chinhoyi Municipality Director of Engineering Services, Simon Marara, confirmed the incident to Telegraph that the mentally challenged man destroyed council property and that they were preparing to repair it as soon as possible.
Chinhoyi Municipality constructed this line converting the old one from electricity powered sewer booster pump to a gradient-based one after a series of power load-shedding.
About two years ago, Chinhoyi Municipality hired a contractor who worked together with council staff to dig a trench for the installation of the sewer line which has a depth of between one metre to 30 metres and is two kilometres long, The cost of the installlation was estimated at around US$70 000 when it was completed.
The sewer line was constructed with good engineering techniques with a catch trap, which is about two metres deep and a length of about two and half metres, which Council frequently used to check sewer flow and undertake repairs whenever there were sewer blockages.