Sinkholes threaten water supply in Carletonville area as Merafong Municipality fails to act
The municipality does not seem to be in a hurry to sort these very serious problems out.
While the Merafong City Local Municipality is still dragging its feet to fill up a sinkhole next to one of the reservoirs near Carletonville, a sinkhole has caved in close to another one.
The Herald has been reporting about a sinkhole next to the pipeline leading from the reservoir near the 007 shopping centre in Carletonville since 2023.
This reservoir has been out of order since another sinkhole snapped the main pipeline to town in June 2015. Although the municipality has had a contractor on site to repair the reservoir, it has done nothing to fix another big sinkhole next to the pipeline that has been re-routed since the 2015 disaster.
A visit to this reservoir this week showed that the only thing that has been done at this sinkhole, has been to cordon it off. The sinkhole is now so close to one of the pillars on which the pipeline rests that it can cave in any day.
If this happens it will take a part of the pipeline with it.
This reservoir is supposed to be the backup reservoir to supply Carletonville with water.
The fact that it cannot be used makes water shortages a much bigger problem when there are issues on the Rand Water network.
Meanwhile, there are new problems at another big reservoir in our area.
When the Herald visited the Adatta reservoirs with a ward councillor from the area, Carlos Rebelo, on Friday, workers at the site pointed out that there is a new sinkhole close to this reservoir as well.
Although this sinkhole is only about a metre in diameter, it is so deep that someone looking into it cannot see the bottom.
“If this caves in it can eventually take a part of the reservoir with it,” Rebelo lamented.
“We saw this sinkhole when we started working here in November last year. No one spotted it before,” says one of the workers.
They started working at the reservoirs as part of a municipal project to fix a leak at the facility.
The Adatta reservoirs supply the Khutsong Extensions, Welverdiend and the Elijah Barayi mega housing project with water.
The Herald took the issues to the municipality’s marketing and communications manager, Temba Fezani on Monday, but received no response by printing time.
