Systems affected by Eikenhof outage ‘steadily improving’, says Johannesburg Water

Only a handful of systems remain of concern for Johannesburg Water as the entity confirmed the systems affected by the outage at Eikenhof are “steadily improving” overall.

The city struggled this week to meet demand after the critical City Power Eikenhof substation, which supplies Rand Water's Eikenhof pump station with electricity, was again tripped by lightning at 8.45pm on Monday.

Earlier this month, a similar event led to technical problems and water outages in suburbs of up to 10 days.

Johannesburg Water's 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 Brixton, Hursthill, and Crosby) compared to Tuesday, specifically at the Brixton reservoir and tower, which enjoyed increased capacity levels.

“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.”

Providing an update on the situation in Soweto, Johannesburg Water said most of the reservoirs and towers have “maintained stability and only the Meadowlands and Zondi reservoirs are slightly low”.

This update comes as Johannesburg Water flagged Rosettenville and the CBD as high water consumption areas and urged residents and businesses in both to take “immediate action” to reduce this. The two fall under the Forest Hill reservoir, which is part of the top 10 meters with the highest consumption.

The water and sanitation department confirmed minister Senzo Mchunu, with his deputies David Mahlobo and Judith Tshabalala, met a delegation from the city led by mayor Kabelo Gwamanda where they received an “update 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 an engagement on March 5.

“During the meeting 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.

“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 said.

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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