Some lucky residents of the Siza Water consession area, from Zimbali to Tinley Manor, will begin to receive water in thier taps today.

Shakaskraal, Nkobongo, Shayamoya and Shaka’s Head however will continue to rely on the water tankers, due to damaged infrastructure.

Siza Water group managing director Shyam Misra said, to gain access to more water, they had agreed to allow the supply of bulk water to be slightly discoloured to bring supply into the reservoirs.

“Additional chlorine has been add­ed to ensure the water is free of any bacteria and remains safe for consumption. Should you receive water and it’s discoloured and feel not comfortable, you can simply boil the water before using it,” said Shyam.

“Currently there is no time frame as to when we will things get back to normality, so we urge residents to use water wisely.”

Residents can still collect water from the Fraser water plant and the water provider’s 25 water tankers will continue delivering water across the Dolphin Coast.

Umgeni Water corporate stakeholder manager Shami Harichunder said the past 24 hours had seen an improvement in Hazelmere Dam’s water quality, allowing Umgeni Water to increase potable water production at the Hazelmere Water Treatment Plant.

At midday today (Saturday), potable water production reached 30 megalitres in a strategy of steadily increasing output as raw water quality improved and treatment processes performed effectively.

“The plant produces, on average, 70 megalitres (million) per day. At this stage, 40 megalitres are arriving for treatment and 30 megalitres are being supplied as potable water due to backwashing, ” said Harichunder.

He said they were able to transfer potable water to storage reservoirs within the service area of the Hazelmere Water Treatment Plant on a rotational basis.

“These reservoirs are filling at a steady pace. As production increases overnight, as anticipated, the levels of these reservoirs will further improve. However, numerous variables will determine whether production will increase or not. These include improving raw water quality and effectively functioning treatment processes,” he said.

Water from these reservoirs is supplied to eThekwini Metro, iLembe District Municipality and Siza Water.

“The improvement in output was made possible through steadily improving raw water quality over the past 36 hours.

“Three days ago turbidity levels were high due to strong inflows into the dam that brought with it a very high sediment load and foreign material from catchment run-off.

“The plant is not designed to cope with these high-suspended solids that are 20 times greater than its design capacity. At that time, production at the plant had to be temporarily halted due to a large increase in suspended solids/sediments from the dam.

“Operating the plant in these conditions would have resulted in poor water quality that would not have been compliant with the South African National Standards for drinking water quality.”