Day zero for parts of Johannesburg this weekend

The Johannesburg CBD and surrounding areas will be without water from tonight until Monday.

In a notice Joburg Water said from 8pm tonight till 8pm on Monday there would be, “no water for the duration of hours”.

The water utility said the interruption was due to the installation of isolating valves at Hector Norris Pump Station as part of the ongoing upgrade project.

Ongoing Johannesburg water update project

Spokesperson Nolwazi Dhlamini said it was not a water outage but, “maintenance work which we have always done and do regularly”.

Dhlamini added it was standard procedure for the water supply to be completely switched off during the maintenance process.

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“We isolate a system before repairs and maintenance work to avoid water flowing at the section or point of repair and maintenance.

“Mechanical and electrical work cannot be done in an open system as it impedes the ability to repair and introduces safety risks to all.

“It’s similar to working on an electrical line or component where power must be isolated [switched off/ closed].”

Water completely shut off

However, chair of the portfolio committee on water and sanitation Leon Basson said yesterday that 46% of the water loss in the region was due to poor infrastructure. He said the three metros in Gauteng – Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane – all had the same problem of poor infrastructure that was not up to date.

“You get a lot of pipe bursts, water losses because valves are not working, then we lose that water”.

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Basson said: “We must support municipalities and metros that want to spend money on upgrade maintenance [work] and make sure we don’t have a lot of lost water in the area because currently, the delivery of water is under stress in the Gauteng area.”

Basson added that there must be an emphasis on getting a water plan in place to rectify the water loss.

“I think it should be first priority to have intergovernmental relationships between the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs and the department of water and sanitation and see if we can get funding for metros to upgrade our systems.”

Water plan to rectify water loss

The areas that will be affected include Newtown, Selby, Jeppestown, Doornfontein, Forest Hill, Turffontein, Rosettenville, La Rochelle and Turf Club.

These areas are under region F of Johannesburg. Johannesburg Water said they would be supplying water tankers during this time to all the areas impacted by the outage.

“They will be sent out as and when necessary for the areas affected,” said Dhlamini.