DESPERATE to get answers, community members called a meeting to discuss the water crisis in Margate Extension3on Tuesday this week. The pressing problem even resulted in a local school shutting its doors by 11am every day.
The six days and counting dry-tap run began when the main water pipeline supplying Margate and surrounding areas encountered a major break last Thursday afternoon.
Technical teams were dispatched by Ugu District Municipality to the site by Friday, where a few lengths of the pipeline were replaced. Living without water for days on end has been difficult. One resident posted on Ugu Complaints’ Facebook page that it is high time the public demanded positive action and a contingency plan for these almost daily outages.
He said residents asked Ugu officials from the floor what measures had been put in place to provide residents with water in times of crisis and criticised Ugu for its poor communication skills.
As only three tanks were set up in the area, residents asked for more water tanks to be erected. Failure to fill these tanks regularly was also a problem.
AfriForum’s Wessel Pretorius (Margate) and Chris Fourie (provincial).
Municipal manager, DD Naidoo apologised for the lack of water and said Ugu is doing everything in its power to rectify the situation in Margate Ext 3.
He asked residents to report poor or bad behaviour of truck drivers by taking down the tanker number and/or registration numbers.
France Zama, spokesman for Ugu, said the major pipe breakresulted in the reservoirs supplying the areas of Margate and surrounding areas drying up. This led to the interruption in supply to these areas.
The municipality, he added, is currently using all its resources to build up water in the reservoirs to enable the affected areas to receive normal water supply.
The reservoirs supplying areas of Ramsgate and Margate had recovered and normal supply has been restored in these areas.
Community members outside the airport for the meeting.
However, he pointed out that the municipality has encountered a further problem – vandalism to its water network in KwaNositha where water valves and pumps have been damaged.
Low lying areas of Margate and KwaNositha are currently receiving water through the water tanks provided in the area.
Our technical team are working tirelessly towards repairing the vandalised equipment and to ensure that normal water supply is restored, – France Zama
Mr Pretorius said that Ugu is currently running around like headless chickens trying to plug holes instead of starting to replace aging infrastructure and planning ahead to do preventative maintenance. “Now is the perfect time with all dam levels and river levels being at its lowest in recorded history,” he said.
Further problems have surfaced this week:
* Plenty of water was disruption were reported all over the coast. Parts of Oslo Beach, Izotsha, Ramsgate and Hibberdene have been without water this week.
A broken water tank in Ramsgate.
* Ugu is believed to be at least five water tanks down after three collapsed and broke in Ramsgate, one in Uvongo and one in Margate Extension 3. It appears the large storage containers were not supported properly causing them to fall over and break. One woman posted on Ugu Complaints’ Facebook page saying that after Ugu filled one of the tanks and left, it collapsed. Not only are these tanks very expensive, but it is a waste of water. Mr Zama said Ugu had recently purchased the stands from a new service provider and it was the first time they were used. “The poor quality of stands has been elevated to the service provider for rectification,” said Mr Zama.
Water wasted from an Ugu meter in Bomela location near Holiness Church.
* Water spurting from a meter in Bomela near Holiness Church for over three weeks. Community members claim to have reported the matter to Ugu, but their plea to save water seems to have been ignored. Last Saturday, the Heraldreported a burst pipe at Ugu’s main pipeline near Tongasi river (R61) to Ugu communications, who assured the paper that the matter would be attended to. However, when the Herald went to investigate again on Tuesday morning, water was still spurting from the pipe.
You guys are wasting your time. We have reported this for months, but no-one at Ugu seems to care about saving this very scarce resource, – angry resident.
Ugu said it was still waiting for information from the relevant departments before they could comment on the matter.
