Brown water woes for Port Zimbali residents
"While the brownish water may be aesthetically unpleasant, we can confirm that the water was still safe to be consumed, based on our lab results." - Khosi Mathenjwa
Residents of Port Zimbali Estates are unhappy with the quality of water coming out of their pipes and less with the quality of service from Sembcorp Siza Water.
Estate manager for Port Zimbali Estates, Rob van der Velde told The Courier that their water has been brown since last week Friday.
According to Sembcorp Siza’s public relations officer, Khosi Mathenjwa, a storm on Friday evening ripped off the roof of the raw water feed reservoir at their Frazers plant and the system was shut down.
“All networks were then reverted back to full Umgeni supply which resulted in sediment lift due to the reverse water flow in the network.”
“The reverse water flow from a different point of supply lifted the sediment which is always present in a water system.”
Residents also claimed that when they noticed this problem they were unable to reach any Sembcorp Siza personnel to query the issue.
“Our office was closed on Monday, October 31 – and this was advertised in the local newspapers and we also sent out text messages to consumers that have registered to receive alerts from us,” said Mathenjwa.
“We can confirm that our service provider did not divert calls to our call center from our office number and we are addressing this with them to ensure same is not repeated and we apologize for the inconvenience that was caused.”
Residents also feared that the brown water coming out of the pipes was undrinkable.
Mathenjwa said that while the roof of the raw water reservoir at their recycled water system was compromised this did not affect the water quality as the filtration system was unaffected by the storm.
“It may be necessary to scour water over a few days to get rid of the sediment in the pipes. While the brownish water may be aesthetically unpleasant, we can confirm that the water was still safe to be consumed, based on our lab results.”
“We estimate that it will take approximately three weeks for us to conduct the repairs.”
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