‘Water infrastructure crisis’
MIDRAND – Councillor Annette Deppe shares her views on the current drought.
South Africa is in the grip of a severe drought and many cities are struggling under ‘water throttling’ measures imposed by the authorities.
DA councillor for Ward 132, Annette Deppe, has very strong views on mismanagement of resources and the crumbling municipal infrastructure. She said there is no question that the drought is severe and there has been the lowest reported rainfall in decades.
She pointed out that for the past 22 years only minimal infrastructural maintenance has been carried out. “I’m not talking about forced maintenance undertaken to deal with the myriad of burst water mains and the repair of leaks, I’m talking about planned, structured maintenance to replace or maintain aging infrastructure on an ongoing basis,” said Deppe.
She revealed that many of the old asbestos pipes that have been breaking over the last five years are being replaced with plastic pipes, which is a problem as the joints where the two pipes meet often have to be custom-made to fit and it takes time, and usually happens over a weekend, when the full complement of staff is not on call.
She said the cut-and-patch maintenance is merely putting a small band-aid over a gaping, leaking wound, therefore, regular, planned maintenance schedules to evaluate the state of the valves and pipes in the water system are needed.
As councillor, Deppe said she has had to deal with thousands of water issues and the single greatest problem has been the fact that valves were never checked. During the day, the pressure is raised for customers in commercial business parks, for example, causing pressure to drop in residential areas at the same time.
“This trend is then reversed at the end of the day, with pressure increasing at night in the residential areas, resulting in burst water mains in residential areas at night; followed yet again by unequal pressure during the day in the same residential area.”
She stated that in the next budget cycle the City of Joburg needs to support the replacement of old infrastructure by suitably qualified engineers who can do the job and add to this regular inspections to check valves and pressure.
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