WHILE the City of Johannesburg had introduced level 2 water restrictions, Ekurhuleni Metro is still mum on the situation on the East Rand.
Rand Water has issued the municipality a notification at the end of October stating that its supply pipeline servicing the area was under severe strain due to increased water demand.
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In the meantime DA ward councillors Tania Campbell, Jill Humphreys and Ashley Rutherford, issued a statement on Tuesday, saying a “water crisis engulfs” the metro.
“As the drought threatens to engulf the country, Ekurhuleni has failed to take action to help curb the effects of the drought on its residents, who are now facing massive water restrictions.
“The DA calls on the mayor and Rand Water to adhere to their responsibilities and address the residents of Ekurhuleni on why they have allowed thousands of litres of pure drinking water to go unchecked and failed to upgrade the infrastructure, leaving residents vulnerable. In some parts of the metro taps have run dry with Rand Water struggling to keep up with water demand,” they said.
According to the DA two reservoirs have already run dry in the Bedfordview area. Due to the system running on a gravity feed from the reservoirs, once the levels in the reservoirs have dropped, the pressure drops and the highest lying areas are the first to lose pressure.
EXPRESS
is waiting for comment on the situation in Kempton Park, following
complaints of no water of very low pressure in certain areas.
“The metro has elected not to invest in a telemetric system. This system would indicate at what level the water in reservoirs are and when the valves should and should not be turned on or off. Chaos reigns as engineers are using their best ‘guesswork’ as to how full the reservoirs are.
“On the basis of this, instructions are issued as to what valves should be operated and once emptied, it is extremely difficult to get back to the correct volumes and pressures needed to refill. With empty reservoirs, residents receive conflicting and incorrect information about available water points, as the taps dried up in Bedfordview, Primrose Hill, Primrose and Sunnyridge. More areas will be affected overnight.”
According to the DA the metro sent out information about water tankers to be placed at strategic points in the affected areas. Shockingly, the media department listed roads and intersections that do not exist, and then failed to place any of the tankers anywhere, until 24 hours later.
“Once these tankers were emptied, it took another 24 hours before they were refilled. On top of that, three of the tankers were leaking. This mirrors the failing infrastructure of the metro, which spends R600 million a year on lost and unaccounted for water, which is currently sitting at over 36%.
“The official answers from the department remain: Rand Water does not have the capacity to refill our two reservoirs and residents are using more than is available.
“However, there has been no warning issued to residents regarding a scarcity of water, until this disaster struck. Residents are now in a panic, having received very little communication from the metro regarding other areas that may be affected by water shortages.”
Furthermore, the metro was without a contractor to repair water leaks for months.
According to Themba Gadebe, metro spokesman, the appointment of a water meter contractor
has been delayed since July 1. The delay was caused
by unforeseeable circumstances, he said.
“The appointment of contractors was finalised on November 6 and it was expected that contractors would start working on Monday, November 9.”
