Athlone Park water problems exposed
It would appear as if the 2013 design was not adapted or capacitated to fully facilitate the enlarged user footprint.
The water outages that effected the northern parts of Athlone Park recently necessitated an explanation from Ward 97 councillor, Andre Beetge, although he said it was possibly not what residents want to hear, but are compelled to be notified of.
“Besides the fact that not only Athlone Park, but indeed all suburbs across the city, find itself subject to old and failing infrastructure, originally designed to facilitate much less and for a shorter period, the actual water supply poses a further challenge.
The southern side is fed off an extended long line that has its origin at the Umgeni reservoir at the top of School Road inside Bhekulwandle. From there it snakes along Fynn Road into Umdoni Road past Kingsway High School, towards the garden suburb. The northern area, that includes the water tower, is in turn mainly fed from the northern line across the Ezimbokodweni River with its origin in the central area from Mobeni.”
He said the recent outage was not necessarily as a result of an under-supplied tower or design flaws or shortcomings, but instead a shared burden with almost the entire Isipingo due to a pipe failure along the main supply line between Mobeni and the southern area.
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“Repairs necessitated the pumps from the reservoir being shut down, as in fact there is no plan B to get water to the areas beside the main line. One would have to understand the demographics and kilometres of pipe that needs to fill up once such a network is recommissioned as following the repair, there are also air pockets and continued usage by those first receiving supply in lower areas, thus further delaying the higher areas closer to and the towers themselves, to receive supply.
“Following on ourselves receiving conflicting information on repair progress, further compromised by another leak after initial commissioning, shift change and the fact that the origin of the problem rested outside the southern area with officials unknown to us, we engaged several officials come early Tuesday morning (17 November) to obtain clarity as to why a system that appeared filling up (although extremely slow) on Monday evening, was still lacking on Tuesday morning.”
Despite having to cut an unknown lock from a pumpstation door, insisting on the redeployment of staff in the better interest of what was fast becoming an emergency and commandeering a water tanker, Beetge and the team also discovered that the new Athlone Park tower, commissioned this year, but originally designed in 2013, was apparently already lacking in capacity to consistently supply in the increased demand for the area.
“It would appear as if the 2013 design was not adapted or capacitated to fully facilitate the enlarged user footprint closely coupled to extensive development in the area. We find this to be a huge problem, as planning for such capital projects has to align with the integrated development plan and envisaged future development potential, also taking into consideration urbanisation and the densification strategy for as space becomes less, demand certainly increases – clearly in the case of the Athlone Park tower, someone dropped the ball (possibly more than once)!
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“Given the continued water outages to the area and expected increased demand going into summer, we have requested the water design department, though the office of the head of water and sanitation, to explain and elaborate on how they hope to address the ‘flawed’ system in an effort to supply consistently in the expectation of the area’s residents and business owners,” said Beetge.
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