Many residents in Soshanguve woke up to dry taps on Wednesday and yesterday due to ongoing maintenance of water infrastructure by Rand Water.
Municipal spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the water utility‘s extensive maintenance of its infrastructure supplying water to the City of Tshwane affected some of the municipal reservoirs.
“The City of Tshwane has noted reported situations of water supply interruption in some of the areas around Soshanguve and Mabopane as a result of Rand Water’s continued comprehensive maintenance programme of its Palmiet and Mapleton systems,” he said.
Water outages were experienced after the water utility on Monday resumed their maintenance work on the Palmiet system, which supplies water to Tshwane.
The maintenance, according to Bokaba, was expected to last until 5am on Wednesday, followed by gradual pumping to allow the system to build up the required pressure.
He said during the maintenance period the City’s bulk water team controlled the system to delay or limit the impact of the reduced supply to the reservoirs, which was at 68%.
“Interventions were put in place to manage the rate at which the reservoir levels would drop,” he said.
Bokaba said the City learnt that levels of some of the reservoirs that were serviced by the Palmiet system had dropped significantly, leading to the Sunderland Ridge, Soshanguve L reservoirs and the Soshanguve Tower running dry.
“Mabopane reservoirs are also currently at critically low levels. Water tankers have been activated to provide water to the affected areas,” Bokaba said.
On behalf of the City, he apologised for the inconvenience caused by the maintenance and urged residents to exercise patience during the pumping period as the network took time to recover before it reached the required pressure.
Earlier this month, MMC for Utilities, Regional Operations and Coordination Themba Fosi said the City had implemented various interventions to manage and control water levels according to system requirements during the ongoing maintenance work.
Fosi said the City had taken several proactive measures in preparation for the maintenance shutdown, including filling its reservoirs to over 80% capacity a few days before the shutdown.
In a media statement, Rand Water said it had successfully completed 50 hours maintenance work that started on Monday at the Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant that had impacted the Palmiet Booster Station.
“Although work has been completed at Zuikerbosch, critical reservoirs which are supplied by the Palmiet System have been impacted. These include Klipriviersberg, Germiston, Meyershill, Airfield, Klipfontein, Brakfontein and Haartbeeshoek. As a result, some of these reservoirs are experiencing critical low levels, which have led to low pressure to no water supply in some areas, particularly those in high lying sections,” the water utility said.
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