Fears over Sol’s ability to meet water demand

AS NIGHTLY water cuts continue in Kimberley, fears have been expressed that

Sol Plaatje Municipality is unable to meet the needs of city residents.

Municipal spokesperson, Sello Matsie, said yesterday that the nightly water shutdowns, which have been implemented without warning or communication since the end of last week, are likely to continue for the next few nights.

“The pipeline from Riverton is not leaking and we are pumping to the Newton Reservoir as normal. Despite this, however, the levels of the dams at the reservoir have been dropping to around 12ft, which led to the decision to cut the water at night.”

Matsie said that the optimum levels of the dams were 16ft.

“The hot weather does lead to increased consumption so that might be one factor affecting our capacity to keep the levels at Newton at 16ft. The other factor is that, as a result of ageing infrastructure, the pumps at Riverton are not pumping optimally. While they should pump at 1 200 litres per second, there has been a decrease of around 150 litres per second.”

He pointed out that this should improve once the new pump station has been connected, which is expected to once again see another citywide shutdown of water.

“It is expected that this pump will be connected in November but we will inform residents timeously.”

Matsie added that the clarifiers could also be a problem as the sediment levels also affected capacity.

“The issue is definitely one of capacity as we are not managing to maintain the levels at 16ft, as well as meet the demand of city residents. At the moment, we are not 100 percent sure of the reasons for this but the city engineer is expected to conduct an on-site inspection at Riverton tomorrow (today) to try find the cause.”

Regarding the quality of the water, Matsie assured residents that the water was safe to drink and met the necessary quality standards. “The nightly switch-offs do result in sediment, which is in the pipes, coming through. As a result, the water might look muddy or murky.”

The constant disruption of the water supply also results in increased burst pipes, which in turn affects the municipality’s ability to meet the demand for water.

“I don’t think that the municipality is actually able to meet the city’s demand for water,” a resident said yesterday. “If this is the case, it should be communicating to residents on a constant basis about the need to use water sparingly instead of just cutting the supply every second week without warning.”