DEAR Editor,-
The recent water outage in Margate and surrounding areas is, in my opinion, a direct result of an inept municipality. Last Saturday and Sunday I noticed tankers travelling down Panorama Parade in Margate to discharge at a manhole in Ramsgate. I wondered what the problem was and my neighbour told me that there was a problem at the new sewage pump station near the Margate Bowling Club.
At around 10pm last Sunday, the water stopped flowing and I assumed it was a repair job and that the flow would come on in due course. On Monday morning there was still no water, so I tried phoning the Ugu ‘customer care’ line with absolutely no response – just a voice talking. So much for ‘customer care’.
I eventually learnt through a contact that the fresh water supply would be restored once the sewage pump is repaired. This sounded very odd as sewage pumps pump sewage and not clean water. I decided to take a walk to the pump station to see what was happening and virtually every municipal truck was parked there attending to the problem.
This pump station was built quite recently as an upgrade to the coastal sewage system. Sewage pump stations are normally constructed very conservatively since sewage flows are continuous and cannot be regulated – and in the event of a breakdown of a pump, there is sufficient capacity available to perform the service.
This pump station is, in my opinion either under-designed or under-maintained. Pumps do not normally break down after five years and that is how long I estimate this pump station has been in service. If one of the pumps broke down, it should have been repaired immediately.
Sewage pump stations are normally provided with a minimum of three pumps (depending on the flow and pump size), namely: a duty pump, a peak-flow pump and a standby pump. For all these pumps to be out of service at once indicates either gross negligence by the municipality or poor design parameters. We will probably never find out which.
What happened over the weekend is that somehow there was a total breakdown of the entire pumping system at this pump station, the sewage flowed in relentlessly and the only solution was to cut the water supply totally and accordingly reduce the sewage flow. Thus the appeal in the message I received from was: Do not flush toilets!
The water supply at my home came on at about 3am on Tuesday morning and was off for at least 30 hours. I would love to hear what the municipal ‘spokesperson’ is going to say about the catastrophe.
FRED SABBAGHA
Margate
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