LAST year’s glitches that resulted in almost a month-long water supply interruption in parts of the Gauteng has posed a challenge to all municipalities to better prepare themselves for such incidences.
Rand Water is the contracted service provider for Ekurhuleni and has supplied water to the province without fail since 1906. No one could have anticipated a challenge such as the one experienced during 2014.
In this regard, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality is working on a future water management plan to cater for such events.
One component in the plan is the exploration of an early warning system which would be used to indicate dropping water levels in storage reservoirs and allowing for speedy intervention.
This will be achieved through a telemetric type system that will synchronise all reservoirs in Ekurhuleni, making it easy to divert water from one supply zone to another.
This process will also include the harmonisation of the metro’s underground infrastructure so that municipal potable water supply zones are aligned to enable to distribute potable water from one supply zone to another, where practically possible.
The metro is currently working on constructing two additional water reservoirs, in Palm Ridge and Etwatwa ext 19, which are expected to be complete in the 2016/2017 financial year.
The municipality will also pull out all stops to ensure that more portable storage water reservoirs are built by the year 2021, in anticipation of future supply risk and population growth due to urbanisation.
Additional reservoirs to be built are follows:
20Ml reservoir in Brakpan estimated R25 million
11Ml reservoir in Masetchaba View estimated R18 million.
26Ml reservoir at Russel Road estimated R34 million.
10Ml reservoir in Etwatwa estimated R20 million.
1.1Ml water tower in Etwatwa estimated R10 million.
5Ml water tower in Northmead estimated R32 million.
13Ml reservoir in Dunottar estimated R23 million.
1Ml water tower in Visagie Park estimated R10 million.
25Ml reservoir in Bredell estimated R31.12 million.
The construction of the two storage reservoirs, which will add additional water storage capacity, is already in an advanced stage of planning.
Germiston was the hardest hit during the potable water challenges in September 2014, and in such a dedicated feeder line to the existing Russell Road reservoir will be in place before the end of 2015/2016.
