Water is slowly returning to households affected by Rand Water’s three-day maintenance over the weekend.
However, residents in the low-lying areas are urged to use water sparingly until the supply is fully restored.
“This is to allow our bulk water system and reservoirs to recover quickly,” said Tshwane metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba.
The maintenance saw a large scale of households and businesses without water for about four days.
Bokaba said, “Tshwane is pleased to announce that there has been a gradual improvement to the city’s bulk and distribution systems, which are fed by Rand Water’s Mapleton System.
“The city’s system ran dry following infrastructure maintenance work on its Mapleton System, which took 77 hours (three days and five hours) to be completed. This exercise started on Friday, 26 July and ended on Monday morning.”
Bokaba said the maintenance work led to no pumping occurring to the Mapleton System, witnessing various areas in Regions 2, 3 and 6 without water.
He said this compelled the metro to dispatch water tankers to the affected areas.
“It is important to note that Tshwane, like other metros in Gauteng, receives 79% of its bulk water supply from Rand Water’s two booster pumping stations, Mapleton and Palmiet. Rand Water has to first replenish its own reservoirs fed from these two systems before it can begin to distribute water to its municipal customers,” Bokaba said.
“This process can take up to two weeks for the network to fully recover. This, however, doesn’t imply that water supply will be restored in two weeks.”
He said it was encouraging to note that, even though the gradual build-up of water supply was at a slow pace, some residents in the areas have confirmed water flow in their taps.
The following areas have started to receive water:
– Wapadrand
– Eersterust
– Waltloo
– Silverton
– The Willows
“The areas that are still without water will continue to be serviced by water tankers. The deployment of water trucks is being co-ordinated through the affected ward councillors,” Bokaba said.
Ward 101 councillor Malcom de Klerk said the following areas were showing slight improvement in water restoration:
– Six Fountains,
– parts of Silverlakes,
– Willow Acres,
– Faerie Glen, Villieria,
– parts of Garsfontein,
– and Olympus.
“I can see the rate of usage now slowing down recovery considerably. So tomorrow there should be good improvements,” said De Klerk.
Ward 92 councillor Leanne de Jager said water in her ward has been completely restored.
She said Arcadia and Sunnyside are fed by Klapperkop and Salvokop reservoirs, which were never affected.
De Jager added that only Colbyn was affected by the Queenswood reservoir, which is fed by the Garsfontein reservoir, and their water was restored this morning.
“Eastwood residents are fed by the Meintjieskop reservoir which was not affected,” she said.
Ward 59 councillor Shaun Wilkinson said, “I’m pleased to report that the water situation in Ward 59 has significantly improved after the imposed Rand Water outage. However, it’s important to acknowledge that other wards are still facing challenges.”
He said he had arranged additional trucks for wards 84 and 52 to assist De Jager’s wards and her affected residents.
Rand Water in a statement said this week marked the final phase of its month-long proactive maintenance which commenced on June 22.
It said the maintenance of the water infrastructure was critical to improving the reliability, integrity and long-term preservation of the infrastructure to ensure a sustainable and uninterrupted supply of bulk potable water.
“The final phases of the maintenance project include the maintenance work at Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant Engine Room 2 which resumed today (July 29) at 05:00 and planned to take place for 40 hours, ending on Tuesday, July at 21:00.
“This maintenance work involves the maintenance of various valves, pipelines as well as electrical and mechanical assets. The work will impact water supply to the Palmiet Pumping Station as pumping will be reduced to 76% during this period implying that 24% of Palmiet’s pumping capacity will be out of production.”
WATCH:
Also Read: No estimate time when water will be fully restored
Do you have more information about the story?
Please send us an email to bennittb@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
