QUEENSBURGH residents are fuming after continued water woes since the floods nine months ago.
Their frustration reached boiling point after almost two weeks of no water or poor pressure when there was water. The suburbs of Moseley, Northdene and Escombe were hardest hit in the area.
The main issue, according to Ward 63 councillor Chris van den Berg, was a drop in level at the Northdene Reservoir that has comprised supply to the lower-lying reservoirs that cannot fill up enough to feed Queensburgh and Moseley Park. “The higher-lying areas are fed by one reservoir because the levels of the others are not sufficient, and the municipality was struggling to raise the level up in the first reservoir,” he explained.
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“The areas higher up were without any water for four to five days,” he reported to the Queensburgh News on Saturday, January 28. He added that the Department of Water had been checking the pipelines on a regular basis, and an attempt was made to get water from the Pinetown area to Moseley.
After a frustrating week for residents, who have been tirelessly trying to get information and answers from a silent Metro, there was a little light at the end of the tunnel after a slight increase in the water levels in the Firwood reservoirs on Friday night, January 27.
The councillor said he was informed that high-level meetings were conducted on Friday between eThekwini Water and Umgeni Water. “I cannot confirm the outcome of the meetings and the plans put in place to resolve the problems in the southern reservoirs, but hopefully, the City will release a statement on the outcome and site visits.”
eThekwini Municipality said it was aware of the interruption of water supply in some parts of the Queensburgh area. “The interruption was due to constrained supply and inadequate inflow to the Northdene Reservoir and the uMlazi 2 reservoir, along with their dependent reservoirs from the Southern Aqueduct,” it said in a statement.
“Municipal teams are monitoring the situation, and this includes assessments at Reservoir 2 at the Durban Heights Treatment Plant where storage for the south and central areas is currently not able to maintain the required level for the Southern Aqueduct to function optimally.”
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