The ageing water infrastructure is to blame for the constant water pipe bursts and water outages in and around Fourways.
This is according to the general manager of operations at Joburg Water, Etienne Hugo who addressed the issue after residents in areas such as Riverside, Riverside View, Chartwell and Steyn City were recently left without running water for many hours because of a 500mm water pipe burst in Steyn City.
Residents had to rely on supplied water tankers provided by Johannesburg Water to access water.
Hugo said the city’s water utility has set aside a budget to replace old asbestos water pipes in the area. “Fourways is one of the areas where our infrastructure is too old to cope with the demand for water supply in the area. The budget has been set and allocated to help replace old asbestos water pipes with new plastic pipes. Johannesburg as a whole has a R2.3 billion infrastructure backlog which will take at least 10 years to fix.” Hugo said.
He said the utility was prioritising problematic areas like Fourways to address the issue of ageing water infrastructure.
Ward 94 councillor David Foley said at one stage there were almost 40 days of bursts and repairs that led to water outages around Cedar Road, Uranium Street and Elm Avenue.
“This is a notorious area where the old AC asbestos water pipes cannot handle various pressures and need to be replaced. I’m pleased that Johannesburg Water has initiated a capex project to replace the pipes and look at the overall flow and redundancy in the area,” Foley said.
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