End to the city’s water crisis is in sight: residents respond

POLOKWANE – The city’s water supply was restored late Tuesday night after residents in high-lying areas were without water for five days when the reservoirs that supply water to the city dropped to dangerously low levels of less than 10%.

The areas affected include Bendor, Flora Park, Serala View, Seshego, Ster Park and Môregloed.

On Tuesday, Nirvana, parts of Fauna Park and the central business district were also without water.

Residents told Review that they were angry, annoyed and frustrated with the municipality.

“The municipality’s excuse of load shedding is pathetic. The municipality knows that when there is loadshedding it affects the water supply, so having the loadshedding schedule, the municipality should have a back-up plan to prevent such a problem. We do not blame Eskom, but the municipality for poor planning and negligence. There is more loadshedding scheduled, and we hope the municipality is working on a plan to prevent this problem from reoccurring,” residents said.

DA ward councillor, Frank Haas, confirmed that load shedding contributed to the problem.

“Water is pumped by several pumps in a series and if load shedding shuts down one pump, it affects the rest and the whole system is off.”

Municipal spokesperson, Tidimalo Chuene, said the municipality was continuously engaging Eskom in Lebowakgomo on load shedding and how it affected water sources.

Chuene explained the water transfer process: “Lepelle Northern Water (LNW), who is a bulk supplier of water to Polokwane Municipality, will pump water from its sources, which are mainly the Olifantspoort and Ebenezer plants. Water from LNW’s plants is then stored in the municipality’s reservoirs. From the reservoirs, water goes through the municipality’s reticulation network and then to the consumers.”

According to many residents, this water crisis had cost them a lot of money because they had to buy water and travel up and down to collect it.

Residents flocked to several stores selling water, including Oasis Water Polokwane.

Cobus van der Lith, owner of Oasis Water Polokwane, said with this water crisis, they had more people who visited their stores to buy water.

“Regular customers purchased more than they usually purchased, because they had to use the water for cooking, drinking and other household purposes. We definitely saw an increase in sales compared to other days. We have three branches, namely Industria, Platinum Park and Savannah Mall. All our branches had long queues of people wanting to buy water. There was such a great need that our branch in Platinum Park ran out of water and residents had to go the other branches to buy water,” Van der Lith said.

The current reservoir levels are as follows:

• Krugersburg 50ML reser-voir – 6%.

• 30ML reservoir – 10%.

• Potgieterlaan – 20%.

• Extension 34 – 95%.

• Seshego – 10%.