Water crisis looms if taps run dry

In a letter that Phillip Minnaar, a DA councillor in CMLM for the Umjindi area and also part of the disaster management portfolio in EDM, wrote to the City of Mbombela, he requested that the municipality intervenes as a matter of extreme urgency.

But according to municipality spokesman Joseph Ngala, it is not up to the City to declare a disaster area. “It is only the Office of the Premier that can make such a decision,” he said.

In the meantime, municipal officials in Barberton are working on short-term solutions to keep water running in the town.

During an interview with Lowvelder, Minnaar said Fairview Mine in the area has agreed to provide water and 10 water tanks. “We will start to put up water tanks from next week. We have also approached Agnes Mine to assist. We need the municipality to urgently appoint a contractor to transport water from the mines to the people,” he said.

“There will also be a water extraction point at Barberton High School, where residents can get water from the borehole at the school, and other extraction points will also be put in place, but these will not be enough,” Minnaar said.

He said other short-term solutions will be more water tankers in Umjindi and the fixing of existing boreholes. Long-term solutions are increasing the capacity of the Lomati Dam, drilling of more boreholes and building more dams to provide water to all residential areas.

Lomati’s level is now about 20 per cent and dropping by the day. The officials in Barberton may now only extract and purify 50 per cent of the daily water allocation.

This makes it impossible to maintain the required levels in the various reservoirs. Most of the residential areas experienced very low water pressure or no water at all for several days.
Spokesman for the Department of Water and Sanitation, Sputnik Ratau said it will be prudent for the municipality to move with speed.

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“The municipality should engage with the provincial government and the Department of Water and Sanitation in the province to assess the situation so that decisions can be made. Once decisions have been made we can decide on solutions,” he said.

Ratau said no dam can be allowed to run completely dry.

“Once a dam is dry, it destroys the infrastructure. The situation may need an emergency solution, but it is the discussion that the municipality should have with the provincial management, which will then inform the national disaster management,” he said.

Ngala said the City will implement some short-term interventions to augment water supply in Umjindi.

“Some of those interventions are to refurbish existing non-functional boreholes and have them connected to JoJo tanks for storage at strategic locations and the allocation of more water tankers. The long-term solutions will include drilling of more boreholes and to request increasing the capacity of the Lomati Dam and the construction of another dam in the Queens River catchment by the national Department of Water and Sanitation,” he said.

Ngala said the City appeal to all citizens to continue using water sparingly throughout Mbombela, as this situation is prevalent in a number of villages, even outside the Lomati Dam and Queens River catchment.

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