Water throttling leaves Midrand residents fuming

SOME Midrand residents have been left fuming following a month of sustained water restrictions.

They have accused the City of Joburg of neglecting burst water pipes that waste water in the area, but authorities blame local residents for their high consumption.

Yesterday, Vorna Valley Residents’ Association chairperson Marianne Nel said the greater Midrand area was without water last week and for several days this week.

Residents had to fetch water from tankers provided by Johannesburg Water.

Nel said the restrictions have continued for a month, leaving residents frustrated.

“You ask whose fault it is. Surely it can’t be us. A few months ago, Vorna Valley had several major pipe bursts along Le Roux Avenue and Harry Galaun Drive where residents were left without water for three to five days at a time.”

Nel said the neighbouring Halfway Gardens was also affected. “We lose thousands of litres of water due to these burst water pipes and then we get restricted for something we have no control over. Vorna Valley is riddled with burst water pipes because of old infrastructure,” he said.

Yesterday the City of Joburg issued a statement notifying residents that Rand Water would restrict three more meters by 20%, the Chloorkop meter supplying the Chloorkop reservoir; President Park meter, which supplies the President Park reservoir and the Tower and Rem Allandale meters, which supply the Rabie Ridge reservoir.

Two other meters, supplying Halfway House and North Western Areas, were also under restriction.

Nel said it was unacceptable that the city continued to approve more developments with high-density units while it failed to replace old infrastructure.

Requests for meetings with the MMC of infrastructure development Nico de Jager and mayor Herman Mashaba, were unsuccessful, he said.

However, De Jager said the restrictions by Rand Water was done annually to ensure that it did not exceed its limit.

“This is nothing new. Rand Water can only pump 5 billion litres of water to Ekurhuleni and Tshwane daily and Joburg only receives about 1.6 billion litres.”

De Jager said the impact of water throttling had affected residents because reservoirs were already low.

He denied the City neglected burst pipes.

“We have ageing infrastructure across the City. The problem is bigger than Midrand.”

In this financial year, the city would replace 80km of water pipelines and 43km of sewerage pipelines.

De Jager urged residents to use water sparingly during this time. The council, he said, had plans to build its own reservoir to supply areas currently serviced by Rand Water.

Rand Water spokesperson Justice Mohale said water throttling was standard practice to reduce the flow of water to municipal networks.

“We do this when the consumption is higher than the supply.”

Mohale said the higher demand was attributable to hot weather conditions. “It’s normal. People use a lot of water in summer to fill swimming pools.”

He added that some of the highlying areas were affected because of low pressure.

“We monitor our system. When there is too much usage, we throttle. It’s better for residents to have limited water pressure than no water at all.”