Water crisis: Slow progress but steady, 13 days later

JOBURG Water operations manager, Logan Munsamy has promised Randburg, north of Joburg, residents that water will return soon as systems are making progress.

This as the area entered day 13 of water shedding which was triggered by two incidents that occurred at Rand Water's Eikenhof Pump Station due to City Power outages.

Munsamy said this on Friday, 15 March during a media briefing on the current state of water supply in parts of Joburg.

“Systems that have been affected in the Randburg area are recovering well. There are fragmented areas that do have poor pressure to no pressure, which is due to airlock. There's a team on the ground normalising the situation,” he said.

Over the past two weeks, parts of Randburg were subjected to water tankers, while some people had to buy water to cook, bathe, clean or flush toilets.

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At the time, Ward 99 Councillor, Nicole van Dyk said the water outage has had a negative impact from kids not attending school to businesses having to shut down or buy water.

While she has noted the return of water in some areas in Randburg, Van Dyk said residents wonder if this return is permanent.

And indeed, she was right as residents in the area came back to say that the flow of water had stopped again.

While efforts to restore water continue, Munsamy has noted with concern a valve feeding into the main system that was closed, ultimately adding to the already limited water supply.

“We've checked the valves and the pressure and picked up irregular flows. We engaged with Rand Water, and realised after that there was additional flow.

"While we appreciated the flows, they reduced drastically and when we evaluated, there was a main valve that feeds the system, and it was found to not have been in a fully open state. That is investigated,” Van Dyk said.

Joburg mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda did not acknowledge that the city has a water crisis. Instead, he referred to it as a "technical issue".

"We're not even close to assuming it's a crisis. We have access to water. We were experiencing a technical issue. We responded with mitigating measures, like sending in water tankers," he said.