By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The City of Johannesburg residents have experienced water supply issues since August, which Johannesburg Water is attributing to high consumption because of the hot weather and a diminished supply by Rand Water.
Johannesburg Water, the municipal entity that purchases bulk water from Rand Water purification plants for distribution to consumers in the City, has undertaken to host biweekly updates on the system.
Rand Water has 67 direct points that supply the City’s 35 water towers and 95 reservoirs and pump stations connected to 10 957.88 kilometres of distribution pipes.
The water utility says more than 100 tankers are providing water to various areas in the city and 55 have been deployed to suburbs hit by a water shortage “crisis”.
The utility’s COO Derrick Kgwale briefed media about the state of water supply in the city on Friday.
Kgwale confirmed tankers were an outsourced service and operated in two ways.
“You have your day-to-day, which is a service dedicated to informal settlements. You’re aware that in the City of Johannesburg, there are about 312 informal settlements and because of the nature of these settlements, they haven’t been provided with potable running water and therefore the only alternative is to provide water tankers.
“At any given point there are about 61 tankers deployed to various informal settlements from Orange Farm to Ivory Park. The second portion of this sort of service, which is also outsourced, is what we call emergency water tankering service. During this period of crisis, or water disruptions, there are about 55 water tankers at different settlements where we are assisting those systems which are constrained,” he said.
Kgwale defended the quality of water from tankers, saying it was tested regularly with water from Rand Water and is safe for consumption.
This was the second such briefing in a week, but this one delved into suburbs critically affected by water shortages.
These are South Hills, Crown Gardens and parts of the Commando System.
Johannesburg Water’s senior manager for networks Logan Munsamy gave an update on the performance of the Rand Water reservoirs that feed Johannesburg Water’s reservoirs and towers.
Munsamy said the three reservoirs and towers under the Commando System are “constrained” but despite this, it [commando] is not restricted from the Rand Water system because it is a “sensitive system”. The reservoirs affected are Crosby, Brixton and Hursthill 1 and 2. The worst hit is Crosby, which is at 5% as opposed to Thursday when it was empty.
Another critical system is the South Hill tower, which feeds areas such as Risana, Tulsa Park and Linmeyer and its supply status is “low to intermittent flows”, according to Munsamy.
The Berea reservoir, supplied by the C12 pipeline from the Zwartkopjes system, is at 27% while the “outlet is 50% opened”. The reservoir has a low supply and is relying on roaming water tankers.
This reservoir feeds water to Bertrams, Bezuidenhout Valley, Bruma and Cyrildene.
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of ENCA.