Rand Water has announced that the Emfuleni Local Municipality intends to undertake emergency repair work at their Vereeniging power substation on Monday night, resulting in water interruptions.
According to Rand Water, the repair work entails urgent repairs to an 88kV on one of their transformers, which will result in a total power outage at the Rand Water Vereeniging Water Treatment Plant.
The repairs are expected to start at 7pm to 12am on Monday, 16 May 2022.
The outage will result in a total shutdown of Randwater’s Vereeniging Water Treatment Plant, meaning that no water will be purified or pumped during the five-hour period.
Rand Water systems that will be affected are as follows:
Eikenhof Booster Station (50% down), Zwartkopjes Booster Station (40% down) and Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark and Sasol (100% down).
The repairs will result in water supply interruptions across these municipalities:
“Water supply interruptions are likely to occur in areas supplied from the reservoirs listed above, however, Rand Water will monitor reservoir levels for the duration of the emergency work and provide progress updates on the work carried out by Emfuleni Local Municipality. Full recovery of the systems will take approximately 3-5 days,” said Rand Water in a statement.
Rand Water has urged all consumers to continue using water sparingly.
Presenting his budget vote to a mini-plenary of the National Assembly, Water and Sanitation Minister, Senzo Mchunu, assured KwaZulu-Natal residents that his department was working as fast as possible to restore water supply.
“Immediately after the floods, we established a water and sanitation War Room, together with the worst-affected municipalities. Our department quickly hired water tankers to supplement those available in the municipalities and we seconded a team of engineers and other specialists to the War Room to
assist with the implementation of emergency repair work and to assess and quantify the damage,” said Mchunu.
“Good progress has been made with regards to the restoration of water supply but there has been
immense damage to water and sanitation infrastructure. Once funding is allocated, we will continue
to be involved in the planning and monitoring of implementation of the reconstruction projects,
with a stern focus of ‘building back better’.”
