Strikers target water supply

VRYHEID’S water reticulation system is vast. It includes kilometres of pipes from Klipfontein and Bloemveld dams to reservoirs on Vryheid Hill via purification plants, and then more kilometres of pipes bringing that water from the reservoirs to individual taps in homes and businesses in Vryheid, Bhekuzulu and Lakeside.

It would be impossible to guard every metre of piping. The municipal strikers knew that; they knew that the water supply constituted a soft target; and they struck on Friday morning.

Up on Vryheid Hill where the reservoirs are, the main pipes are exposed. The one bringing water from the Klipfontein purification plant is an old (and probably fragile) asbestos pipe. The strikers smashed it with a large rock. Another pipe, a new blue PVC pipe, which feeds the water from the reservoir down to the town’s consumers, was also smashed open with a large rock, knocking a hole through it and causing a long fracture. By midday, parts of Town were without water.

Non-striking workers were apparently threatened, and so the repairs to the pipes were effected by a private sector company.

The strikers achieved nothing. If there had been any sympathy for their cause, it went down the plughole with the failure of the water supply. Depending upon where you live in town, the water supply was restored to taps sometime on Saturday.