The hot topic during the recent council meeting was ‘water’.
On Thursday, January 31 the municipality eventually acknowledged that they have a serious challenge of water security and water quality.
“This is due to on-going imbalance in water demand and supply, and water contamination with dissolved solids,” said Mr Kingdom Mabuza, municipal spokesperson.
He said the municipality has recently faced challenges with reported extremely poor water quality and frequent water interruptions with severe impact on the western areas of the city.
The main reason of poor water quality was due to a number of pipe repair works conducted on affected areas which were not properly cleaned upon accomplishment of repairs.
The reason for this was due to unavailability or insufficient drainage points (scourer valves or fire hydrants) as a result making dirty water to reach consumers taps.
The other reason is due to dirty water that is usually realized shortly after system recharge.
This is due to aged infrastructure which has long term deposition of sediments and manganese oxidation in the distribution network.
The third reason affecting quality is due to on-going battle with manganese.
It must however be indicated that the treatment efficiency at the plant is effective and is within acceptable limits but there are few occasions of system fail which affects production but there has never been a point where water was unsafe for consumption.
Despite dirty brown water residents hardly have water.
Mabuza said water interruptions were mainly due to insufficient volume of water in the system which is exacerbated by water losses which emanate from frequent failure of aged infrastructure.
“The municipality mainly rely on customer reports and this system has its shortcomings as there are delays in identification of failures. Prompt turnaround time has been improved on identified major pipe bursts or leakages.”
The external scheme which is not capacitated to handle high concentration of dissolved solids is decommissioned to reduce risk of water quality deterioration.
This has adverse effects on the water balancing as every drop plays a significant role in balancing the system.
This scheme shall be introduced back into the system as soon as the raw water quality improves or as and when need arises.
The community is urged to use water sparingly and to promptly report water pipe bursts and leakages as the system is under strain during summer season’s high water consumption.
Consumers are not happy with this explanation.
The general feeling is that they pay for water and this basic service is not delivered.
Coupled with extremely high water bills, residents are of the opinion that the municipality is failing in delivering basic services.
