EDITOR – I join the many people complaining about the water supply in the Athlone Park area over the festive season from 8am on 28 December to noon on 8 January.
I have reference numbers for every day, all without response.
On one occasion the plumbers were asking me what needed to be done to fix the problem. I was also referred to the local ‘engineer in charge’, Darryl Davids but five calls per day for 12 days and no calls were answered. I was ‘promised’ by the call centre every day that a tanker would be despatched but the first tanker I saw in 12 days was at 5pm on 8 January after the water had already been restored.
My concern is far greater than no water or on-off water which, when it was on, was less than 100kpa and could not reach my geyser, thus damaging the pressure control valves and element in the process.
My real concern is that every break in the past five years that I have physically seen (and they are regular) in Kingsway, Ipahla, Fynn and Umdoni roads is an A/C pipe – A/C meaning asbestos cement. These pipes were installed between 50 and 65 years ago and were bitumen-lined. They had a life expectancy of 20 years before the bitumen lining would become compromised and they became unsafe and brittle. Now 40 years after the expiry of those pipes they are still in use.
The bitumen lining wore away 40 years ago, exposing the raw asbestos to the water and consumers. For those who don’t know, asbestos is now a banned substance world-wide and by law must be disposed of in a ‘certified safe disposal’ manner. Asbestos rates 10 on the cancer-causing scale, together with benzine. It rated 10 because even the most minute particle on the skin while showering could enter the body and travel to any point, causing cancer at any time or many years later at any point in the body.
Anyone questioning this is welcome to Google it. Ten is the highest rating possible, yet the water being fed to us is passing through rotting asbestos pipes and every burst is exposing more asbestos to the public when the water comes back on. I myself have been a cancer sufferer. How many people in the greater Amanzimtoti/Athlone Park area have been struck by cancer in the past 10/20 years?
I am well aware that there are many other causes but that is no excuse for feeding people water through asbestos pipes in 2014. Less was known about this 65 years ago but they did bitumen-line the pipes to prevent the water contacting the asbestos. Now that research has proven the extent of the problem and the lining has worn away, is it not time to make corrections to the all too common excuse of ‘ageing infrastructure’? There are so many local cancer sufferers that I believe a cancer treatment facility is being built in Athlone Park.
Some years ago the same pipe route was dug up and we were promised new plastic pipes and no more breaks. They were put into the ground, I saw them. Yet our water is still coming to us via asbestos pipes and we suffer constant outages because of A/C pipe bursts. I have been requesting answers for years but no-one is able or available to answer me – there is simply no response. I am hoping the Sun may be able to elicit some information from the powers-that be because I have failed to make enough impact to get a response. Who knows if a class action would work.
REPLY FROM Neil Macleod
Head: Water and Sanitation
Inherited water pipe problems being addressed
EDITOR – There is a large volume of research evidence which shows that asbestos fibres ingested into the human gut do not cause cancer.
The fibres are too large to pass through the walls of our intestines and so they exit the body without causing any harm.
The problem with asbestos cement piping is that if it is cut without the use of water, the fibres can be breathed into the lungs and cause cancer. We stopped using this pipe material many years ago and have replaced nearly 2,000km to date at a cost of about R2-billion Rand.
In the process of doing this work, we have discovered another 1,000km that was incorrectly described in old plans inherited from many of the small water authorities in the late 1990s. The replacement of the remaining pipes is proceeding as fast as our budgets will permit and without massive tariff increases that would be needed if it was done over a short time period. We expect that it will take another 10 years before the piping is completely replaced.
Neil Macleod
Head: Water and Sanitation
