By Cebelihle Mthethwa.
Rand Water has raised the alarm on critically low water supply systems in Gauteng, saying municipalities need to act on its recommendations now to “prevent impending disaster”.
It said in a statement that water supply systems, including Rand Water reservoirs, are critically low, and the situation is anticipated to worsen with the ongoing heat wave.
“Rand Water would like to alert communities, particularly in Gauteng, that water storage could soon be depleted if municipalities do not implement our recommendations. It is essential to act now to prevent the impending disaster. Rand Water emphasises that it is operating at full capacity and cannot pump additional water into the system.”
The City’s water supply entity added that, because of the limitations imposed by the organisation’s extraction licence from the Department of Water and Sanitation, it cannot extract more water from existing sources.
“The only viable solution to address this issue is through Water Conservation and Demand Management.”
According to Rand Water, the organisation had repeatedly warned municipalities in Gauteng about this potential crisis, through letters, meetings and engaged in discussions at Gauteng’s Intergovernmental Governance Forum and the Gauteng Water Imbizo.
“Rand Water urged municipalities in the Gauteng region to reduce the physical losses of 33% identified in the No Drop Report, repair leaks, enforce by-laws, and address illegal connections.”
The water supplier further reiterated that consumers should not direct water shortages to Rand Water, but to the municipalities.
Johannesburg Water announced on Saturday night that a city power outage had affected pumping at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station.
The affected systems are Commando (which comprises Brixton, Hurst Hill, and Crosby), Randburg, Roodepoort, Soweto and Crown Gardens.
“City Power is in the process of investigating the cause of the outage. There is currently no estimated time of restoration,” it said.