4-year leak in Mthatha Dam pipe a major cause of water woes

A leaking pipeline from the Mthatha Dam, damaged as far back as 2016, has been identified as a major factor contributing to Mthatha’s water woes.

Despite the national water & sanitation department being alerted to the problem, nothing has been done to fix it, according to OR Tambo district municipal bosses.

As a result, the district municipality has to extract water from the Mthatha River to supplement what it gets from the dam.

The Dispatch reported earlier this week that a number of businesses, including major supermarkets, car dealerships and households, had been without water since taps dried up on Friday.

Affected areas include Northcrest, Hillcrest and Ncambedlana.

OR Tambo district municipal spokesperson Zimkhita Macingwane said: “The municipality is supposed to extract about 80 megalitres instead of the 35 it is presently getting.

“This is crucial for full operations. For our [water treatment works] plant to be able to process raw water, that is the amount we need.”

She said the situation had a huge effect on operational costs as the municipality had to do emergency extraction from the river using pumps.

This put immense pressure on purification efforts as the Mthatha River’s turbidity was high, resulting in less water being processed for consumption by the inhabitants.

She said they had informed the national department of the leaking pipeline immediately after it was detected four years ago. She estimated the damage to be about R3m.

They were in the dark as to why it had not been fixed.

“The municipality even made a proposal to fix the leak but it was rejected,” she said.

Though the dam is used by the district municipality to supply water to Mthatha and surrounds, it is the property of the national department.

She said the national department had started to repair the pipeline but the project was frozen at the beginning of the national lockdown.

Macingwane said discussions were taking place on transferring special pipes to fix the leak from Mokgalopelo municipality in Limpopo.

But this needed an OK from national treasury.

A KwaTshatshu village resident in KSD municipality’s ward 31 near Mthatha, Msekeli Mkhonto, confirmed they had been experiencing ongoing water shortages for four years.

He said they had to drink dirty water from rivers because “this” have . is the only option we

Water & sanitation national spokesperson Sputnik Ratau was sent questions on Thursday morning and said he would follow up with the Dispatch. He had not responded by print deadline.

KwaTshatshu village residents drink dirty water from rivers because ‘this is the only option we have’