Timeline of incidents that lead to the collapse of water system

Joburg Water‘s general manager for operations Etienne Hugo gave a brief overview of what transpired over the past few weeks that resulted in the water crisis the city now faced.

Hugo was speaking during an online meeting with Ward 87 residents arranged by councillor Bridget Steer.

“Rand Water is exempt from load-shedding but power outages have been a massive problem as they cannot pump water,” he said.

Following is his timeline that led to the crisis:

September 23
There was a five-hour power failure at Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Works which saw water pumping capacity drop by 50%. He explained this severely impacted storage levels as water continued to be used but was not being replaced in reservoirs and towers. Water is pumped from here to all over the city.

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September 25
There was another power outage lasting seven hours.
“After each outage, it takes about five days to recover the system. The system recovery was on track with increased flow and reservoirs filling up,” he said.

September 29
A water pump trip resulted in a 40% capacity loss undoing all gains made in the previous days.

He explained that these events occurring so close together meant the system had not been able to recover which resulted in an unprecedented strain on the water network. “Each time there was an interruption the impact became bigger and bigger.”

With the increase in water demand due to last week’s heat wave, Rand Water in Gauteng took an immense strain.

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October 3
The fatal blow came when water was redirected (load shifted) by Rand Water from the Eikenhof pump station to Ekurhuleni and Tshwane. “This resulted in the total collapse of the network that feeds Brixton, Crosby and Hursthill.”

Water restrictions have now been placed across the city until further notice to enable water storage levels to improve.

Hugo also spoke of discussions with Eskom over the past six months about investigating alternative power solutions to prevent this from happening again.

When questioned by this reporter about why this had not taken place since the 2008 power crisis he said, “Like other state entities, resources are extremely limited and we did not foresee this happening. But we are now caught with an energy problem on top of ageing infrastructure. It’s a perfect storm.”

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