Today Thursday 6 October 2022, Executive Mayor Sello Morero led an oversight visit to Hursthill, Brixton and Crosby water reservoirs accompanied by Ntshavheni Mukwevho Managing Director of Joburg Water and Logan Munsamy Senior Networks Manager at Joburg Water.
“I thought it was important for us to conduct these visits and get a proper sense of the technical aspects of the problem and how it has become a crisis impacting heavily on residents and business as well as allow the media to get the facts about this water shortage”, says Mayor Morero.
According to Munsamy the water supply challenges in the south of Johannesburg affected the Crown Gardens reservoir and tower as well as the Eagles Nest reservoir. Johannesburg Water Brixton (22 Ml capacity), Crosby (46 Ml capacity) and Hurst Hill 1 (22 Ml capacity) & 2 (22 Ml capacity) reservoir complexes are supplied with water from the Rand Water Commando Road bulk meter and supplemented with supply from the Rand Water Stafford bulk meter. The water is supplied directly from Rand Water into the Hurst Hill 1 & 2 and Crosby Reservoirs. Water is then pumped from the Crosby reservoir to the Brixton Reservoir, then pumped again from the Brixton Reservoir into the Brixton tower. These three reservoir complexes supply water to wards 58, 69, 86 and 87.
He said that interruptions to the bulk supply are usually caused by power interruptions due to load shedding or normal power failures on the Rand Water purification and pumping systems as well as the Johannesburg Water pumping systems which results in reservoirs running at critically low levels that further results in no water supply to high laying areas within the Hurst Hill 1 & 2 reservoir and the Brixton Tower Zone specifically.
A brief timeline of events that led to the water shortage:
On Friday 23 September 2022 Rand Water experienced a power failure at their Vereeniging water works which resulted in a 50% reduction in bulk water supply to their Eikenhof pump station. This failure happened in the early hours of the morning but was resolved at midday on the same day. There was an immediate negative impact on the Crosby, Brixton and Hurst Hill supply zones with water supply interruptions to the high laying areas. The system started to recover slowly but can take up to five days for reservoirs to fully recover.
Unfortunately, on Sunday 25 September 2022 just after midnight there was a total power failure at the Rand Water Vereeniging works. This failure was resolved after six hours by Rand Water. The impact however was that all the gains made to stabilise the Crosby, Brixton and Hurst Hill Supply system following the 23 September 2022 incident were lost and reservoir levels even from Rand Water (Meredale and Waterval) were worse off. The eimpact on the Commando Road system was even greater than before and larger areas were affected by water supply interruption.
On Thursday 29 September 2022, Rand Water experienced a pump trip at their Eikenhof system for about three hours which reduced the pump station capacity by 40%. Again the Commando system was negatively affected as it was already vulnerable due to previous incidents.
On Friday 30 September 2022 in the early hours of the morning Rand Water had a power supply issue to their Zuikerbosh purification works which again had a 60% impact on the supply to Eikenhof for about six hours. This then affected the vulnerable system once again. During all these incidents, the Crosby, Brixton and Hurst Hill Systems never recovered and in turn water supply disruptions worsened. This incident resulted in Rand Water not being able to stabilise their Meredale and Waterval reservoirs to the extent that city reservoirs in the South which are supplied from Meredale to. Crown Gardens and Eagles Nest were affected.
On Monday 03 October 2022 in the evening, Rand Water took 200 Ml/day supply from the Eikenhof system to boost their Palmiet system which was at a critical stage. This load shift basically affected the Commando Road supply meter and some of the reservoirs in the south of Johannesburg. This led to a more than 60% drop in city water supply to Commando Road which left all three reservoir complexes empty. This led to a domino effect as the Commando Road meter feeds into Crosby, Brixton and Hurst Hill systems.
During this period Johannesburg Water continued supplying residents with water via water tankers and stationary tanks located at various strategic areas. They also continuously started pumping water into the Helen Joseph Hospital tanks from Sunday afternoon, 25 September 2022 to date.
On 03 October 2022, around 17:30, Rand Water called an urgent meeting with Joburg Water to discuss stage 2 water restrictions due to the hot weather as well as the bulk water supply interruptions they were experiencing.
During the early hours of 6 October 2022, Joburg Water started pumping water into the mentioned reservoirs again, bringing much needed relief to frustrated residents. Plans are afoot to install a new generator and construct a booster pump as well as construct a 22ML reservoir to increase water storage. Residents are requested to comply with the Stage 2 water restrictions currently in place due to high demand usage.
Ends
For more information contact mediaqueries@joburg.org.za or Virgil James on 082 467 9415
Issued by the
City of Johannesburg
06/10/2022
