Ward 16 Clr Jaco Terblanche told Express on August 6 all parts of Glen Marais’ water had been restored by 3pm and by then they had not received further complaints.
The water outage left many Glen Marais residents without water or low pressure for several weeks.
Terblanche said this issue was related to the series of burst pipes that occurred between December 2019 and January this year.
He recently questioned MMC of Water and Sanitation about the causes for the water outages.
“The MMC said the December and January pipe bursts had been repaired and the department cannot recall any household or consumer not having water for six consecutive days.
“Pipe bursts were located on Monument Road, Joubert Street, Veld Street, Rietfonein Road, Fiskaal Street and Beukes Street in Glen Marais. These areas are supplied from Concourse Street water pipe line.”
Terblanche also asked the MMC whether it was a reservoir or a Rand Water problem, to which the MMC said the reservoir supply was bypassed and the water was supplied directly which led to high water pressure resulting in burst pipes.
“The inlet supply pipe to the reservoir was leaking across Isando Road, which led to a bypass of the reservoir and supply directly.”
Terblanche said the intricate system related to the water pressure regulator experienced difficulty as some parts’ regulators were not functional.
“This is believed to have resulted in the high bars of pressure flowing directly from the reservoir to have not been regulated properly, resulting in multiple burst pipes.”
What is the department doing in order to curb these recurring water issues?
The MMC said all boundary valves have been identified, verified and tested to prevent excessive water pressure to Glen Marais zone supply.
“The department is planning to install a pressure-reducing valve on the main supply to Kempton Park CBD, Glen Marais, Aston Manor and Allen Grove to manage and control pressure when the system is bypassed or directly supplied.”
In order to address this the department is also undertaking the following projects:
Commissioning of the first Kempton Park 25 megalitre reservoir – pipe contractor is on site (contractor could not commission because the contract expired before commissioning)
- Construction of the new Isando 10 megalitre reservoir – contractor on site.
- Construction of a second Kempton Park 25 megalitre reservoir – contractors on site.
- Construction of the new Kempton Park 1.5 megalitre tower – contractor is on site.
- Construction of the new Bredell 22 megalitre reservoir – contractor is on site.
- The net effect of these new reservoirs is an additional 83.5 megalitre of water.
This combined with the new and existing capacity will bring the storage to 96megalitres, or 69 hours, of storage cover.
