THE ongoing water cuts in Sarnia, Glen Park and Mosley has been described as dreadful by irate residents who are calling for the infrastructure to be upgraded.
According to the affected residents, the issue of water cuts in these areas date way back. In 2018, a community meeting was held with officials from the water department, but the problem still exists and has worsened.
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A resident said the leaks run for days before they are dealt with despite being reported.
“Plumbers who come out to repair the leak, most of the time, are not well equipped. Sometimes two people arrive and wait in their van for hours for parts or back up.
“As soon as it is fixed, and the water is switched on, another pipe bursts nearby. Each case gets closed and one has to open another. Recently, residents of Avondale Complex in Boom Street were without water from Friday to Tuesday morning with three different breaks causing the water cuts.
“Another leak is now evident meters away from the last and not attended to. Clearly there is no maintenance, co ordination or back up,” said an irate resident.
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Avondale Complex chairperson, Danny Taljaard, the numerous water outages were of great concern to the residents of Sarnia/Glen Park and Mosley areas.
Taljaard said, “Most times, the call centres do not answer your call and you can hold on a further 20 minutes when you eventually just put the phone down. When contractors get on site you find many of the sub contractor employees sitting around and not attending to the complaint while the affected areas are out of water.”
Taljaard, blames what he calls ‘aging infrastructure’.
Old infrastructure needs to be replaced
“These developments have a massive negative impact on the supply of water for these areas. Many times the water pipes burst in the same areas that the sub contractors have recently repaired which questions the competency of the people attending to these leaks. The ward councillor, Melanie Brauteseth has been contacted and she tries her utmost best to try and assist with the residents issues but this, like many cases, falls on deaf ears in the municipality,” he said.
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Taljaard also provided a long list with dates of the water outages the residents of Sarnia, Glen Park, and Mosley have experienced in just two months.
eThekwini Municipality’s spokesperson, Msawakhe Mayisela said the cause of this will be investigated.
“Water pipe bursts can be caused by a number of factors. They are sometimes caused by continuous rainfall that may cause soil to be loose thereby making pipes to move.”
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The City spokesman said they also have cases where temperature, corrosion and high-water pressure in the pipes can cause bursts, encroachment by tree roots, and soil erosion can cause pipe to lose positions.
“We apologise to residents for the inconvenience. Our plumbers will be dispatched to attend to the matter,” he said.
Ward 18 councillor, Melanie Brauteseth said the ward has been inundated with numerous water supply interruptions over the past six months.
“These incidences have steadily accelerated and now occur on a weekly if not daily basis. The main factor underlying all of these issues is the ever crumbling infrastructure and the municipality’s negligence in adequately planning for upgrades and essential maintenance.
She said to make matters worse, there is insufficient in house technical capacity and at the same time a lack of resources to procure enough plumbing contractors and essential equipment.
According to Brauteseth, this decay does not happen overnight
“On the governing party’s watch, this situation has steadily worsened despite many warnings by myself and officials. A recent response to questions in council relating to water infrastructure revealed the arrogant ineptitude of the municipal political leadership,” she said.
She added that, she was however grateful to those officials who have worked consistently with her to manage the crisis and is happy to advise that a 7.5km water replacement project in Westville North is in the final stages of approval.
“I will continue the fight for similar projects throughout Ward 18,” said Brauteseth.
Caxton Local Media Covid-19 reporting
