Please save water, pleads Joburg Water as some areas hit 'critical' levels

Soweto and large parts of Joburg at risk of running out of water

16 November 2021 - 15:47
By TImesLIVE AND Gill Gifford
Joburg Water has issued an urgent appeal to customers to reduce water usage as much as possible to avoid systems being depleted. Stock photo.
Image: 123RF/Weerapat Kiatdumrong Joburg Water has issued an urgent appeal to customers to reduce water usage as much as possible to avoid systems being depleted. Stock photo.

As the 54-hour Rand Water outage affecting more than eight municipal areas in Gauteng successfully passed the halfway mark, Joburg Water has announced it is starting to experience difficulties.

Spokesperson Eleanor Mavimbela said high consumption on Tuesday has placed water supplies at the Rand Water Meredale reservoir at a critical level.

Meredale supplies Joburg Water’s reservoirs and towers in Soweto, Crosby, Northcliff, Crown Gardens, Hursthill and Roodepoort. This means that these areas will soon have low water pressure or no supply at all, and will be reliant on water tankers that will be brought in to supply residents.

The Yeoville reservoir has also been affected by reduced supply and high customer consumption, Mavimbela said.

Joburg Water has issued an urgent appeal to customers to reduce water usage as much as possible to avoid more systems being depleted.

“Reduced consumption will assist in the recovery period after the outage,” said Mavimbela, acknowledging that the system will need time to fill up once the maintenance project has been completed.

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