More sinkholes near Carletonville reservoir

Many Carletonville residents can still remember when the municipality cut the water supply to the whole town for days because a sinkhole had caved in under the pipeline from the reservoir near the 007 shopping complex.

This happened in June 2015, but we may not be far from another similar disaster.

There are currently several sinkholes near the same reservoir. The edge of one of them is less than a metre from one of the pillars holding the main pipeline that supplies Carletonville’s water.

“This sinkhole is growing rapidly. We are concerned that it could cave in further when the rainy season starts,” said Mr Enoch Sobantu on Monday. Sobantu is the site foreman of a municipal project to repair the reservoir,

The Herald visited the site after an item to discuss the work done at this crucial facility at a council meeting on 28 September. An EFF councillor, Mr Leroy Legabe, had asked the council to investigate issues at the reservoir, including this sinkhole, the body of a man near the facility, and a truck that was torched there recently.

“The councillor did not even know about this new sinkhole, as it only caved in two weeks ago,” said Sobantu while pointing out yet another sinkhole. Although the surface of this sinkhole is only about two metres in diameter, it looks about four metres deep.

As if this were not enough, the sinkhole that was filled after the 2015 disaster is caving in again. There are also at least two more smaller but older sinkholes in the same area near the reservoir.

Site workers pointed out where the body was discovered on 28 September. The illegal mining works are metres from where the main municipal water pipe connects to Rand Water’s. The man was presumably also a zama-zama, and the police are investigating the case. The torched truck was a brand-new Volkswagen Constellation that arrived at the site a week earlier. It was set alight inside the contractor’s cordoned-off site.

According to the item before the council, work costing over R30 million has already been done at the 007 sinkhole. The scope included conducting a “detailed geotechnical and dolomitic investigation”, rehabilitating the sinkhole (which is now caving in again) using the “inverted filter method”, rerouting the collapsed pipeline and conducting a structural integrity investigation of the reservoir. This work had already been completed in 2017.

Phase 2 of the project, for which the contractor is currently on site, includes strengthening the reservoir wall, fixing joints inside the reservoir, fixing joints in the apron on the perimeter of the reservoir and other miscellaneous work at the site. R25 million has been allocated for this work.

The municipality could give no timeline for when this crucial work would be attended to.

“The municipality, through the multi-disciplinary disaster committee, plans to backfill all sinkholes with dump rocks from the mines. However, the community structures had reservations about the safety of the dump rocks. Plans are in place to test the dump rocks with funding from the Gauteng Department of Human Settlement.

The first step is to test the material to ensure its safety for the community before the municipality fills the sinkholes.

All identified sinkholes will be rehabilitated.

The issue of illegal miners is national and needs government intervention.

The municipality has escalated this matter to the Provincial Government through IGR (intergovernmental relations) mechanisms. Merafong will provide an alternative supply if our pipeline is affected and notify Rand Water if it is their pipeline. Rand Water has its plans to maintain its infrastructure, and the municipality cannot interfere in their maintenance plans,” the acting municipal marketing and communications manager, Ms Nomonde Mahube, said when asked for a response.