‘We save, you waste’

Residents are fuming after witnessing months of water wastage near their homes.
This comes after Joburg Water issued many calls to residents to reduce water usage as some areas were experiencing low to no water pressure.

Recently, resident Schylah Schreuder noticed a big pipe leak on Chroom Avenue.

“They seemed to have excavated the area to replace the pipe and water meter, but every time I have driven past there the water is leaking and flowing onto the road. There are other areas where you can see water seeping through the grass, presumably from a broken pipe, and flowing into the road. We are asked to save water, yet it feels like the municipality is wasting this precious resource with their delayed response!” she exclaimed.

According to the residents, Vuurlelie Street, Chroom Avenue, and Babiana Street have all had water wastage in the past month.

“There was also a big water leak on the corner of CR Swart and Belladonna,” added Schylah.

The Record reached out to Ward Councillor Florence Roberts and received the following comment on the situation:

“It is and has been a very frustrating situation over the last two months. Besides other factors but mainly long hours of continuous load-shedding cause the pumps and pipes to run dry – or residents experience low pressure. When the water comes back in, often the pressure causes some pipes to explode as the infrastructure is old resulting in potable water leaks – which is hard to watch especially when we conserving.

“Residents are very responsible and report these leaks immediately and I escalate to Joburg Water. The frustration comes with the time it takes to repair these leaks. Diggers have to be allocated to find the leaky pipes deep underground and road reserves are dug up leaving unsightly holes in front of residents’ homes. It’s not a pretty sight and often the reinstatement of these holes takes even longer from the entity. I have a list of these in the ward and am constantly checking with Joburg Water on the resolve,” explained councillor Roberts.

Comment was also requested from Nico Singh, Joburg Water’s Regional Manager in Roodepoort, but was yet to receive any feedback at the time of publishing.

The deep excavations and leaking pipes were yet to be fixed since the last check-in from residents on Monday. The Record will inform the community as soon as more developments arise.