Last week residents were angry and frustrated when they were without water for several days. This was due to several breaks in the various pipelines feeding water to residents, says Mr Jaap van Oudtshoorn, water and sanitation manager.
Reservoirs were filled last week Monday afternoon and residents were notified that the canal would be out of service due to maintenance. They were cautioned to use water sparingly.
On Monday night one of the pipelines broke. This only came to the attention of the authorities on Tuesday morning. The reservoirs were almost completely drained.
On Tuesday afternoon another pipe broke and the Umbhabha reservoir, in turn, was almost dry.
The Numbi Park borehole was used to supply residents with water, but it too broke.
By Thursday afternoon the canal could be used again and by Thursday evening parts of town had water, with the rest receiving water during the course of the next day.
Van Oudtshoorn says Hazyview is very fragile in terms of water supply as there is no dam to extract additional water in case of emergencies.
The Sabie River pump can only provide about half of Hazyview’s daily water usage.
By Tuesday afternoon Van Oudtshoorn said reservoirs were completely full thanks to work by maintenance staff.
Water problems should be reported on 013-750-6021.
