Joburg Water says systems affected by Eikenhof outage ‘steadily improving’

Johannesburg’s water systems are “steadily improving” after a power outage at City Power’s Eikenhof substation, though a handful of reservoirs and towers remain a concern, Johannesburg Water said.

The city was unable to meet demand after the Eikenhof substation, which powers Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station, was struck by lightning at 8.45pm on Monday. A similar lightning strike on March 3 resulted in technical problems and water outages of as long as to 10 days in some suburbs.

Johannesburg Water spokesperson Nombuso Shabalala said the systems affected by Monday’s outage “are back to supplying fairly normally”.

“There is slight improvement on the Commando system (comprising the Brixton, Hursthill, and Crosby reservoirs) compared to Tuesday, specifically at the Brixton reservoir and tower, which enjoyed increased capacity levels,” Shabalala said.

“The Crosby and Hursthill 1 and 2 systems, however, remain low. Poor pressure is expected and Johannesburg Water continues to provide alternative water supply for affected areas. Most of the systems in Randburg are supplying normally and only the Linden 1 reservoir and tower, as well as the Waterval and Quellerina towers are experiencing erratic supply pressure and intermittent supply.”

Johannesburg Water said most of the reservoirs and towers in Soweto have “maintained stability and only the Meadowlands and Zondi reservoirs are slightly low”.

However Johannesburg Water flagged Rosettenville and the CBD as high consumption areas and urged residents and businesses in both to take “immediate action”. The two areas fall under the Forest Hill reservoir, one of 10 meters recording the highest consumption.

The water and sanitation department confirmed minister Senzo Mchunu and deputies David Mahlobo and Judith Tshabalala, met a delegation from the city led by mayor Kabelo Gwamanda and were updated “on the plans to deal with the water challenges and future water supply sustainability plans for the metro”.

The Monday meeting was a follow-up to a meeting on March 5.

“The city presented a wide-ranging plan on immediate, medium to long-term measures to ensure sustainability of supply. These include infrastructure projects to refurbish, upgrade and construct new storage reservoirs and pump stations as well as associated infrastructure to augment storage capacity and addressing non-revenue water through implementation of water conservation and demand management technical interventions to reduce demand,” the department said.

“These technical interventions consist of, among other things, repairs to leaking reservoirs and tower infrastructure; replacement of water pipes; replacement of domestic and large consumer meters; retrofitting and removal of wasteful devices; and enforcement of bylaws, including removal of illegal connections and customer bypass connections. These projects are in different stages of implementation while others still require funding,” the department added.

Mchunu said: “We are pleased the system has started to pick up but [it is] still generally low. It is evident there is hard work happening on the ground, focusing on areas that are hard hit. There are areas that have been severely affected and others for several days but given the pace there is going to be stability.”

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