More water wasted as yet another burst pipe gushes water down the street

Residents of Blairgowrie Drive were upset after a water pipe burst wasting millions of litres of water. Project manager at Vumatel that is laying pipes for fibre, Alex Waterson, said that he had to sleep out on the street after one of their workers accidentally dropped his pick which cracked the pipe.

“We had to call Johannesburg Water (JW) every hour to see how far they were because the water was just gushing down the street and this worried us because the water would have flooded some of the homes,” he said. Waterson pointed out that he and his team went the extra mile and tried their best to direct the water away from the houses along the street while the water gushed continuously.

Waterson pointed out that the pipe burst after 3pm on 31 May and was only repaired by JW the next day at about 9am after they were persistent in calling the water utility to come and fix the pipe. He accused the water utility of laying their pipes higher up than they should. According to Waterson, Vumatel lay their pipes at 900cm and JW pipes should be at a depth of 1.2m – however the were at a depth of 500cm.

“I am sure that millions of litres of water were wasted and it is such a shame because we are experiencing a drought and water shortages. It is very strange that they encourage users to save water however, they take forever to fix a burst pipe that wastes water,” he said. Spokesperson for JW, Eleanor Mavimbela, denied that JW pipes were at the wrong depth, citing that Vumatel was supposed to expose and confirm the depth of existing services first before they start trenching. “Vumatel has all the information on their JW way-leave regarding pipe depth or pipe top covers,”she said.

She added that JW could not ascertain how much water was wasted and that a team was conducting an investigation and would only know after the investigation how much water was lost. “It is important to note that the burst pipe was caused by a contractor working in the area and a claim will be issued to the contractor,” Mavimbela added.

She explained that the turnaround time for burst pipes was 24 hours, but added that the team responded as quickly as possible to major burst pipes to reduce water loss. She urged residents to report problems through various methods: 0860 562 874; SMS line, 082 653 2143; email, customer@jwater.co.za Twitter, @jhbwater; Facebook, Johannesburg Water.

Related Article: Thousands of litres of water wasted after late response by Joburg Water