Tsunami of water problems swamps Joburg

Johannesburg Water says it is owed almost R30bn by customers and that it has lost R1.7bn to leaks this financial year.

As water on Friday began to trickle back to large swathes of the city that have had dry taps since last Sunday, the metro said it was trying its best to keep supplying water to residents despite many not paying for services.

Areas affected this week included Soweto, Randburg, Roodepoort, Johannesburg South and Johannesburg Central. This followed a double whammy a City Power transformer at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station was hit by lightning on Sunday, while a flashover on a City Power feeder board on Monday affected the dedicated transformer supplying Eikenhof. As a result, Rand Water could not pump any water.

By yesterday, some suburbs fed by the Linden reservoir in the north of Johannesburg still had no water, with the city saying it was “an area of concern”.

Johannesburg Water spokesperson Nombuso Shabalala said the city’s ageing water infrastructure was causing a number of issues, such as frequent pipe bursts and leaks.

“Johannesburg Water has a dedicated team that regularly inspects and cracks down on illegal connections to deal with theft and vandalism. Losses for the year under review amounted to R1.7bn due to leaks in the water network infrastructure.

“Johannesburg Water has an infrastructure renewal backlog that runs into billions. The reason for the backlog is underfunding, which further causes premature failure of municipal assets. Johannesburg Water has a serious problem of non-paying customers who owe the city millions,” Shabalala said. The city had deployed 35 water tankers.

Blairgowrie resident Hussein Lagerdien said to add to their woes, several homes had been left without electricity after a municipal electrical cable was struck by lightning on Thursday.

“Also the Wi-Fi went down. So we had residents with no water, no electricity and no Wi-Fi. Many people could not work. There was a lot of frustration. We spent a lot of time driving around looking for water tankers, which were seldom where we were told they would be.”

Another resident told the Sunday Times the family had survived on water from their rain tank.

“Water tankers only came from yesterday [Thursday]. The problem was that nobody knew where they were at any given time. There was no exact location given where you could go and collect,” said Nickie, who did not want her surname published.

“We used water from our rain tank for washing and stuff like that but we did not have drinking water. That is where the challenge was for most people here.”

She said she spent between R30 and R60 a day buying drinking water and that communication from the city was not effective. “The ward councillors were struggling to get information. Nobody was telling them anything.”

Another resident, Sophia Botha, detailed the trouble she faced living without water just days after returning from surgery.

“I have not seen the tankers and the challenge is that I can’t drive. It is awful and unacceptable. We pay rates and taxes so that we can get services. Our whole grid is collapsing. It is a very bad reflection on our country,” Botha said. She spent R120 a day buying drinking water.

Shabalala said a complete recovery of the water system would take time. “We are supplying water through a series of 12,400km of pipelines around the city. If a reservoir gets low or empty, it can take days, even weeks to recover that storage.

“To aid in the recovery process of our reservoirs and towers, our bulk supplier, Rand Water, is pumping an additional 100Ml, which is contributing to improvements in our affected systems. This is because our systems are interconnected and flexible to augment and support one another in the recovery of all systems.”

Shabalala said the city was experiencing increased consumption and the recent heatwaves had put additional pressure on the system.

The Vaal Dam, which supplies Gauteng, was at 69.6% this week, compared to 109% at the same time last year.

South African Weather Service forecaster Lehlohonolo Thobela said no significant rains were expected in Gauteng before autumn.

Rand Water did not respond to questions.