Rand Water to pull the plug on excessive water usage

To stabilise and avoid the emptying of reservoirs, as well as a complete system crash, Rand Water will apply flow control management of its reservoirs from October 14.
This means that the utility takes full control of the water supply and no longer relies on the consumers to reduce consumption.

The decision comes more than two weeks after the water utility instituted stage two water restrictions across six municipalities, including the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE).

In a statement released by Makenosi Maroo, Rand Water spokesperson, since the beginning of spring, the service provider’s bulk water provision to municipalities has increased from an average of 4 300 million litres of water a day to 4 900 million litres of water a day.

“There are approximately 17 million people in municipalities supplied by Rand Water,” she said.
“On average, water consumption in Gauteng per person per day is over 300l against a world average of 173l per person per day.
“To safeguard the integrity of the system and to ensure continued water supply, we imposed a water supply reduction of 30% so that there is still enough water in the reservoirs to mitigate intermittent supply.”

She continues saying that despite this, water consumption continued to rise and reservoir levels decreased due to even higher water usage.

Zweli Dlamini, spokesperson for the CoE, said the city has not declared water restrictions, however, its water supply has been affected by restrictions implemented directly by Rand Water.

“The current intervention of restricting high demand-supply points, by the utility is aimed at balancing the overall storage capacity,” he said.
“The CoE is reducing unnecessary water usage at the city’s facilities and reducing pressures at strategic locations as part of its water conservation measures, during which the performance of the affected distribution systems will be monitored daily. Additional actions will be taken where required.”

He continued by saying that 17 of the metro’s reservoirs are below 50% capacity while seven are dangerously low or empty.
Dlamini did not comment on whether the decrease in water reserves has been due to the effects of load-shedding, stating that consumption had increased due to consumer usage at the onset of the recent heat wave.

The following reservoirs are currently critically low:
• Etwatwa X19
• Knoppiesfontein
• Daveyton Level
• Zulu Reservoir
• Xhosa Reservoir
• Duduza Reservoir
• Etwatwa x9 Reservoir
• Central Reservoir
• Sunny Ridge Tower
• Cossins Road Reservoir
• Alra Park Reservoir
• Duduza Reservoir
• Mastjhaba Reservoir
• Xhosa Reservoir Nigel
• Zulu Tower
• Palm Ridge Reservoir
• Palm Ridge Tower

He did state that the city has implemented a small-scale leak-detection programme that will be extended once more resources have become available.
“Departments have received a directive that all incidents of burst pipes, leaks and general outages must be tended to and resolved within 48 hours,” he said.
Residents are urged to use water sparingly as the metro and Rand Water, grapple in attempting to stabilise water storage levels.

Also Read: Rand Water restricts water in Ekurhuleni