Port Edward endures nine-day water crisis

RESIDENTS of the Port Edward area have weathered nine frustrating and difficult days of extended water supply interruptions, thanks to burst water pipes and a failed isolation valve.

Ward One Democratic Alliance (DA) councillor and member of the Hibiscus Coast Municipality executive committee Dave Watson said he was most concerned about the current water crisis in his ward.

It was affecting Port Edward, Banners Rest, Leisure Bay, Munster, Glenmore and Kwalatshoda, he said.

The South Coast Herald and its looklocal web site were inundated with complaints about the water situation this week.

A Port Edward father sounded absolutely desperate when he spoke to a Herald reporter. He and his wife had found it almost impossible to care for their young baby with hardly any water supply for nine days.

A newcomer to Port Edward said he had been without any water for five days. He had moved from a rural area where service delivery had been much more efficient, he said.

Since settling in Port Edward a year ago, he had experienced three major water supply interruptions.

A number of people also complained about difficulties they’d had locating the Ugu water tankers during the water supply cuts.

According to Cllr Watson there had been a water tanker stationed at Port Edward Library and sporadic, unannounced water tanker ‘drive-bys’ during the supply interruption.

The good news is that the waterless residents’ misery should be coming to an end.

In a press statement received yesterday (Wednesday), Ugu District Municipality promised that water supply to Port Edward community and the nearby affected areas would be resumed by the end of that day.

According to Ugu spokesman Sipho Khuzwayo, the prolonged water cuts had been the result of several concurrent bursts occurring along the supply mains, cutting off supply to the Port Edward reservoir.

A total of five breaks had been repaired. However, the bursts had not been the only problem, as was first thought.

Workmen had discovered that an isolation valve along the main had failed. This had led to further delays in the restoration of supply to the system, Mr Khuzwayo said.

Yesterday, he assured residents that the systems had been restored.

The Port Edward reservoir had started to fill up and and water supply was expected to be back to normal by nightfall, he said.

High lying zones would experience a delay as the water in the reservoir needed to rise to a certain level before there would be sufficient pressure in the system to meet all requirements.

In a statement sent to the Herald this week, Cllr Watson said he “deplored the abysmal service delivery by Ugu District Municipality over the past week and a half in the Ward One area”.

Residents had experienced extreme hardship due to there being no water service and no Ugu vacuum tankers during this period.

He had received harrowing accounts of the suffering of elderly, infirm and disadvantaged people.He had also heard horrific stories about serious public health and safety consequences of the water cuts.

Two clinics in the area had been affected by the service delivery failure, he pointed out.

“The failure of Ugu to deliver proper service and its failure to communicate properly the issues and plans is further indication of a municipality in dire crisis.

“The DA calls on the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature to correct this issue as a matter of extreme urgency before a full disaster area has to be declared,” he said

Ugu District Municipality appealed to local communities, asking them not to give up reporting water interruptions to the Ugu Call Centre at 08000 WATER (92837).