Johannesburg on the brink of a catastrophic water crisis
As the city groaned under the pressure of widespread water outages it was more of the same; from entities responsible for providing services residents and businesses pay top dollar for, but often dont receive.
Vaunn Kelly has lived in Emmarentia for 20 years and says the water situation has never been this fraught.
“Since September when residents were being blamed for the shortages because of the heat and increased consumption we have had fairly persistent water-shedding from 20:00 to 06:00. Our councillor does a good job, but she is not able to fix the massive problems facing the city.”
He says there is always something happening to water supply which makes planning around outages virtually impossible. “Life just becomes overwhelmingly frustrating and we as a family of five can weather the storm better than many others. I shudder to think of the difficulties some individuals and communities must contend with.”
Kelly would like to see a wholly independent and qualified audit of the water network and water systems because ‘problems surely can’t arise so frequently in a system that is not in a crisis.
Dr. Ferial Adam, executive manager at Outa’s WaterCAN says, “The city is on the brink of a catastrophic water crisis because of Rand Water and Johannesburg Water failing to adequately manage water resources which has pushed our city to the edge. It is concerning because once again there is a lack of communication between entities including the Department of Water and Sanitation to give accurate information for the public to know what is going on. This is exactly what creates and raises frustration for residents in Johannesburg. By throttling water, it is affecting people who have been paying their bills and more.
TIMELINE
3 March
- A City Power transformer was struck by lightning while the pump station was sitting at only 54% capacity. This affected several reservoirs in the city’s water system.
March 4
- In a second incident, a flash-over incident occurred on a feeder-board at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station that affected the dedicated transformer supplying power which resulted in the suspension of pumping activities.
- Johannesburg Water had no option but to throttle or reduce the pressure of supply to various reservoirs in the city.
- The affected systems in the paper’s footprint were Commando which feeds Brixton and Hursthill 1 and 2 and Linden 1 and 2 reservoirs among others.
- Water tankers were dispatched to sites like Rahima Moosa and Helen Joseph hospitals.
- Ward 99 councillor Nicole van Dyk said, “Councillors across the city have been asking for water tankers but were told that there are only 20 – 25 for the whole city which needed to be prioritised for clinics and hospitals.”
March 5
- City Power completed testing on one feeder-board with work continuing on the second.
- 50% power was restored to one of the two boards and in the late afternoon, Rand Water began pumping at 50%.
March 6
- City Power testing and repairs were completed, and Rand Water began pumping at 100%.
- Rand Water began pumping at 100%
- “While supply is now restored, systems will take time to recover,” said both water entities.
- Water tankers more widely spread to the greater Johannesburg area.
Ward 98 councillor Beverly Jacobs visited some clinics in her ward that were close to closing due to irregular water supply as part of the duties for her new role as Shadow MMC for Health and Social Development.
March 7
All reservoirs and water towers are either empty or critically low with an expanded map of where roving water tankers can be located.
Councillors speak out
When asked how long she thinks it will take for supply to be fully restored, Ward 87 councillor Bridget Steer said, “It depends – how many times are we going to be load-shed? Each session interrupts and causes massive delays to supply, the pumps and other infrastructure.”
“This is the same old story when a loss of power at Eikenhof means Johannesburg will be getting no water from Rand Water which will take about a week to recover.”
“There is still no disaster management plan for the city which is astounding and is something councillors have been asking for for years. When there is no water, schools, hospitals, and other institutions should all have boreholes by now which could be made available to the public for use in emergencies.”
Owner of SCP Security Clive Maher said he used his fire, search, and rescue vehicle to deliver 400l of water to the Sophiatown Police Station because the people in the cells and station had virtually run out. “Ward 88 councillor Nicolene Jonker reached out to me because the situation was getting pretty bad.”
Steer said outreach like this would not be so needed if there was a disaster management plan in place. “It would give residents and businesses peace of mind to know that all these departments and entities were on top of this and that there was a proper plan for when this happens again. I say when, not if, because it will happen again.”
Ward 86 councillor Chantelle Fourie-Shawe says, “It is becoming more frequent in Johannesburg with areas like Sophiatown being hardest hit. The biggest concern I have is that Johannesburg Water and the city acknowledge that water supply is constrained and a big issue, but the mayor just repeats what the entities say by blaming residents for consuming more water than they should. The reason is not because people are consuming more than they should – it is because there are water bursts and leaks on every second corner. I think it was about 40% of water usage was estimated as losses.”
“This outage is due to power problems, but it rides on the back of the long-standing issues that already exist – our infrastructure is not able to withstand any kind of disruption.”
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