Benjamin Franklin once said, “When the well is dry, we’ll know the worth of water”.
Those words echoes throughout the municipality as Emalahleni residents are flushing with anger because not a day goes by that there is not a problem with the water in the municipality.
The truth is that Emalahleni Municipality does not have enough water to supply its residents.
It has an actual demand of 148ML per day and the supply across all schemes is at 130ML per day which presents a deficit of about 18ML per day.
This is exacerbated by the water losses which are approximately 35%.
Water scarcity is emanating from the limited water endowed sources and the exponentially growing demand as a result of ineffectively controlled formal and informal developments.
To add more madness to the crisis the municipal Witbank Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) is not designed to remove dissolved solids including manganese and iron.
That is why brown, smelly water with red worms in has been coming out of taps.
“The plant has high efficiency of treating raw water contaminants including manganese and it has not produced water that is posing health risk to consumers in spite of the challenges, however it must be noted that the secondary contaminations realized in the system are mainly as a result of ineffective drainage during pipe repairs,” explained municipal spokesperson Mr Kingdom Mabuza.
The municipal water network has a long term deposition of manganese and other associated impurities which makes water dirty during system recharge.
During a council meeting on Thursday, January 31 the water issue was put on the table.
The municipality is both a water services authority and water services provider within its area of jurisdiction and responsible for water services maintenance, quality monitoring, extensions and development, regulation, demand and supply management.
They listed nine reasons affecting reliable and sustainable provision of water supply and compromising water quality within the municipal supply area; an imbalanced provision of water services, supply and demand; high water distribution losses which have an adverse effect on revenue generation, interruption of services and poor customer satisfaction, aging infrastructure and ineffective infrastructure maintenance; a shortage of which results to prolonged turnaround time; ineffective customer care management system which is mainly ineffectively managed and manually operated; outdated water infrastructure designs and sub-standard material (asbestos cement); mushrooming informal settlements and uncontrolled developments; unauthorized connections to the municipal infrastructure, vandalism and theft and fluctuating raw water quality and restricted water treatment process.
The municipality also acknowledged that there are frequent water pipes breakages experienced especially on the main asbestos cement water pipe lines which are in the majority.
READ MORE: Municipality explains why taps are dry https://www.citizen.co.za/witbank-news/120282/municipality-explain-taps-dry/
READ MORE: Municipality opens taps on explanation for dirty water https://www.citizen.co.za/witbank-news/119646/municipality-opens-taps-explanation-dirty-water/
READ MORE: Still no improvement on water situation https://www.citizen.co.za/witbank-news/119150/still-no-improvement-water-situation/
