Joburg on the verge of a water crisis
ACTIVISTS have called on the City of Johannesburg to resolve the water crisis.
Ravin Singh, the co-conveyancer of the Johannesburg Water Crisis Committee, said the water outages started in September last year.
He said the Berea Reservoir, which pumped water into areas like Bruma, Kensington and Yeoville, was hard hit by the outages.
“Gauteng receives its bulk water from the Vaal Dam. We are also getting water that is pumped from the Lesotho Highlands Project but currently there is a delay on the second phase of the project which is only expected to be complete in 2029.”
In addition, Rand Water also sold water to the City of Johannesburg.
“Despite this, there are many areas that are left without water because of the growth in population of the city. There is not enough water for residents. Also, due to the leaks that we have in the city alone, we lose about 10% to 50% of water.”
Singh said with the mushrooming of outbuildings and increased population, the need for water had grown.
“The pipes supplying water are not big enough and cannot handle the demand. The infrastructure that we have is also not serviced or maintained properly.”
Singh said the city needed to teach residents about conserving water and look at solutions for the water crisis.
WaterCAN, a civil society organisation which ensures that residents have access to clean and safe water, believes the city is on the brink of a catastrophic water supply crisis.
Dr Ferrial Adam, an executive manager of WaterCAN, said they were concerned and alarmed that the authorities were struggling to resolve the dire water supply situation in Johannesburg.
“Rand Water and Joburg Water’s failure to adequately manage water resources has pushed our city to the edge.”
She said that the national Department of Water and Sanitation, Rand Water and Johannesburg Water were not communicating clearly with residents,
although WaterCAN and civil society in November had established a joint forum with these authorities to address the water crisis.
“We have an established forum for the authorities to communicate with civil society and residents. It is completely frustrating that we have to chase these bodies for answers. Can they not bring this information to the forum where all structures are represented? Is protest the only language they understand?” she asked.
“The impending water supply crisis in Johannesburg demands urgent attention and decisive action. We cannot stand idly by while our communities face the threat of water scarcity. It is imperative that we come together to demand accountability and work towards sustainable solutions.”
The Department of Water and Sanitation and the City of Johannesburg said they had put together a plan to tackle the issue.
In a statement, they said the plans included infrastructure projects to refurbish, upgrade and construct new storage reservoirs, and pump stations as well as associated infrastructure to augment storage capacity.
It would include “addressing non-revenue water through implementation of water conservation and demand management technical interventions in order to reduce demand”.
“These technical interventions consist, of among others, repairs of 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 by-law enforcement including removal of illegal connections and customer bypass connections.”
The statement said these projects were in different stages of implementation while others still required funding.
“The city infrastructure backlog is estimated at around R27 billion but the meeting agreed that the focus was on what could be done with the current budget as well as the new budget coming in July, further agreeing that attention was now being turned to possible private sector funding.”
The department urged the city to work on its turnaround time in responding to pipe bursts and leaks in their distribution network as this contributed to the high physical water losses.