VIDEOS: Water problem will not be fixed soon
This means that just like load-shedding residents will now experience water-shedding
There is just not enough water to supply residents with.
During a community meeting on Wednesday, August 7 the director of technical services from Emalahleni Local Municipality, Mr Mike Lelaka admitted that the municipality is failing to supply water to its residents.
The municipality needs 148 megalitres per day to secure constant water supply to its community.
However the demand exceeds the supply with 40 megalitres as only 108 megalitres are available on any given day.
Lelaka fingered the mushrooming of the population, a water reclamation plant and the quality of water for the problem.
“We have an ever-growing population. We need to give houses to people living in informal settlements and furnish them with reliable municipal services,” he explained.
In the past 17 years 70 000 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses were built within the municipal boundaries.
There are seven more informal settlements in the making. Again Lelaka played open cards and said no provision was made for infrastructure for these settlements.
This is putting more strain on the current water supply system.
Lelaka also blamed mining operations.
“Our current water treatment design can not cope with the mineral contamination due to mining activities in our catchment management area,” he said.
In the same breath he blamed environmental changes as well as global warming saying the water quality is no longer the same than what it was a few years ago.
Lelaka said they are engaging with the Department of Water and Sanitation to purify more water to reach the demand.
In the interim the municipality started with water rationing.
They deliberately cut water from one reservoir to fill the others.
This means that just like load-shedding residents will now experience water-shedding.
The municipality did undertake to publish the water-shedding times on all possible social media feeds so that residents can have ample time to prepare for the inconvenience of not having water.
Cllr Naritha Naidu from the Democratic Alliance said apart from the inconvenience of not having running water, the health issue should also be addressed.
“We teach our children to wash their hands regularly. We need clean water to cook. How is it possible to keep up with hygiene if there is no water?”
She said the opposition party will highlight this problem and push for long term solutions.
