Shorter water cuts for city

WITH the recent rains leading to an improvement in the levels at the Newton Reservoir, the Sol Plaatje Municipality will decrease the duration of water shutdowns in the city.

Municipal spokesperson Sello Matsie said that from today the municipality would shut off the water supply to the city at 8pm.

“We will look at how the levels behave and if we are able to keep the system stabilised, we will consider shutting off the water later in the evenings. If we continue to see progress, we will shut off later in the evenings.”

The municipality will continue to switch on the water at 4am. “This seems to suit most people who then have water in their pipes by the time they need to get ready for work and school.”

Matsie said the municipality was adopting a cautious approach to ensure the effective management of this resource. “While the ultimate aim is to provide water on a continuous basis, without any shutdowns, we do not want to stop the restrictions, only to implement them a few days later when the levels drop too low again.”

The levels at the Newton Reservoir have stabilised at around 14 feet. “This is partially due to the fact that the heatwave has passed, while there has also been some good rains and, as a result, residents are using less water because they don’t have to water their gardens. This has seen a decrease in consumption.”

Matsie stated further that last week the municipality had experienced a number of burst pipes, particularly in the Roodepan area.

“After three pipe bursts in one day, we investigated the cause of the breaks and realised that there was a problem with the pressure-reducing valve.”

He explained that the main pipeline from Riverton was able to carry a pressure of 16 bar, but from the takeoff to Roodepan the pipes could only manage 9 bars. “Because of the pressure there were spikes of up to 16 bar in the pipe, which caused the bursts.”

Matsie said that once the pressure-reducing valve was repaired the problem was sorted out.