Sandton residents were fuming after they were left without a drop of water for almost four days while extensive repairs to a burst pipe took place.
The burst 600mm water pipe was confirmed by Joburg Water on 20 November and by 23 November some areas were still without water.
The water outage affected Sandton, Alex, Bryanston, Morningside and Linbro Park, among other areas.
The repair required a few days as a Joburg Water team had to excavate through 35m of the Linbro Park landfill site.
Sandton residents complained about the lack of communication from the water utility.
Residents were promised that water tanks would be stationed at various points across the affected areas, however, many residents were unable to locate the tanks.
Sandton Chronicle went in search of the elusive tanks but was unable to find any at the promised locations.
Isaac Dhludhlu of Joburg Water said, “The entity has lost a number of Jojo tanks that have been removed or borrowed illegally or stolen and that impacts on alternative supply to residents.”
Dhludhlu also stated that they were never informed of the landfill site on top of the main pipe and that it is currently under investigation how the pipe burst.
“Water mains are usually laid at a depth of 1 to 1.5m although you might find water mains deeper due to the site circumstances.”
Dhludhlu confirmed that the mainline belonged to Joburg Water and not Rand Water.
Nico de Jager, MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services explained what happened onsite.
“This burst was not as a result of aging infrastructure,” De Jager said.
“This pipeline was built about 15 years ago and the landfill came afterwards.”
He added that acid eroded the pipes and affected the lifespan of the pipes. “We discovered this big burst as a result of eight smaller leaks that were found on a 60mm pipe that is just above the big pipe.”
De Jager said the larger pipe most probably had a leak for quite some time, but due to the 35m depth, there was no way they would be able to detect it. “We need to further address the fact that there is a landfill developing on top of the infrastructure. The initial work happened over two weeks for the first pipeline that had eight leaks.”
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