White River blackout update: Saturday at 09:00

WHITE RIVER – The City of Mbombela Local Municipality (CMLM) declared that they have restored power to all areas of  the town as of at 04:00.

The blackout started when a transformer exploded around midnight on Wednesday.

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Neil Diamond, Municipal Manager of CMLM said that this was not a maintenance issue, but an unplanned technical equipment failure.

Diamond congratulated the entire Department of Energy for their commitment in working over 50 hours to restore electricity to the people of White River.

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The City said on Friday night that they were able to increase White River’s power supply to around 70 percent, diverted from Rocky’s Drift, if energy use can be reduced to baseline levels. Residents of White River on the temporary power supply were requested to switch off all geysers and non-essential equipment .

Municipal spokesman, Joseph Ngala said the transformer appeared to have exploded. “We are very sorry that our people are sitting in the dark.”

The City thanks the community for their patience and support during this crisis.

The City doubled the workforce attending to the problem and worked non-stop to restore power to White River these past two days.

Lowvelder confirmed that the replacement transformer arrived from Nelspruit at 10:00 on Friday.

The 50-hour blackout frustrated residents.

Ida Facondini says she is “gatvol” of the place.

“Some days I wish I could just vanish off the earth,” she wrote on Facebook yesterday morning after waking up to the blackout.

Linda Grimbeek, chief operating officer of the Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism (KLCBT) said that, as a result, the town was set to miss out on the long weekend’s tourists.

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“A lot of the people who come down to the Kruger National Park or timeshares in Hazyview prefer to shop in White River, as it is not as busy as Mbombela. That is high shopper volumes White River will miss out on.

“The restaurants will be heavily affected if they don’t have alternative sources of power. It is the long weekend, people are on vacation, they want to eat out.

Chairman of the White River Ratepayers’ Association (WRRA), Piet Skead, agreed.

“It is a long weekend. The majority of places are fully booked and we have no water or power.”

Interruptions in White River’s services are nothing new.

Interruptions in its bulk water supply have lately become the norm rather than the exception.

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According to the vice chairman of the WRRA, Robin Clanahan, the water and sewage problem can be attributed to, among other reasons, poor management and maintenance.

“There is no clarity and transparency into what is going on.”

Clanahan, who has been a waterworks engineer since 1961, explained that there are three sewage plants and that every time the municipality tries to fix one, the other ones end up in ruin.

“This is because people who do not know what they are doing end up doing the work.”

About six years ago, Clanahan and fellow engineer Rob McQueen, offered their services to the municipality for free to ensure that the quality of the water improves.

After they did an assessment of the waterworks, the municipality allegedly appointed private consultants to mediate the problems and to do additional assessments.

“But they did not address half of the problems. They replaced equipment that did not need to replaced and they repaired pipes with the wrong materials.”

Clanahan explains that dirt and worms get into the water when pipes break.

“The equipment used to fix pipes is outdated and inadequate. When they fix the pipes, they do not flush them out and that is how things like worms get into our drinking water.”

City of Mbombela Local Municipality’s plan

According to Ngala, several efforts will be made to ensure reliable and sustainable water supply to the town in the next 12 months.

He claimed that the Mbombela-White River 450-millimetre diameter bulk line has been completed and operational. This is, however, not true, since the larger line could not be successfully connected to the old system, and literally blew up in their faces, because the increased pressure could not be handled.

A reservoirs to be constructed from January 2020 (with a budget of R8 million) for additional storage, has also been rejected.

Newly elected ward councillor, Rowan Torr said such a reservoir should have been built in 2016 already, but instead one was built in Msholozi with White River ratepayers’ money.

The municipality also promised to undertake feasibility studies to raise Primkop Dam, to increase additional raw water intake for White River.

A pipe replacement programme is also planned – something the WRRA has been asked for for about eight years.

Ngala denied that any one area of the municipality was treated differently from another.

He said that the transformer exploding could have happened anywhere. He added that the planned reservoir is in response to the growth of the town and new developments.

“The infrastructure we had was enough for the community at the time.”

The community had a meeting this past week, to which no officials arrived, despite confirmation with the speaker and general manager that a petition with more than 1 000 signatures was to be handed over to them.

Those in attendance agreed that the only way forward is to take legal action.

CMLM officials are set to meet with the WRRA about the water issues on Monday. The mayor, Cllr Sibusiso Mathonsi is expected to attend.

MPL and former ward councillor, Trudie Grové Morgan, said residents were stressed out and very frustrated. She expected the community to come down hard on Mathonsi at Monday’s meeting.

“They feel that the mayor is not interested in them, but only interested in the rates that they have to pay.”

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