City says it won’t meet deadline to fix dry taps for some Durban residents

Some north Durban households will continue experiencing water supply shortages after eThekwini municipality’s self-imposed February 15 deadline.

After waves of water-related protests in the suburbs in the northern region, the city committed to complete the repairs to improve the old northern aqueduct by the date, including reducing leaks and replacing defective air valves.

However, at an update briefing, eThekwini municipal manager Musa Mbhele said the commitment to restore water would not be met in several suburbs, blaming technical challenges and a lack of maintenance records for some older equipment.

He said most of the repairs were completed, with 54 valves replaced in the four sections of the aqueduct. Despite the city fixing 31 valves in the third section of the aqueduct, from Newlands to Phoenix, six are outstanding.

“The outstanding valves require modification to fit the new valves into the network, which requires a shutdown,” said Mbhele. “This modification work was not foreseen when the work was planned to be completed by February 15 and for that we wish to sincerely apologise to the affected residents who are without water supply.”

Mbhele blamed the unavailability of maintenance records for some valves, due to the pipeline being too old, for the unforeseen modifications needed in the six valves.

“The existing aqueduct and its valves are decades old, and maintenance and asset records are not available for some valves inside the chambers along the pipeline. In addition, there is housing encroachment on some areas of the pipeline servitude making access problematic and making it difficult to know what types of valves were under the encroachment.”

Mbhele said the modification work was under way and is set to be completed by February 21 but the installation of the six valves will coincide with the commissioning of the “relevant portion of the new aqueduct, to avoid supply interruptions to communities. This will be completed at the end of February.

“The completion of the replacement of 31 valves in section 3 has improved, but not yet fully resolved, water supply to most parts of Phoenix, Mount Edgecombe, Virginia, Umhlanga and Durban North.

“The successive commissioning of phases of the new northern aqueduct will improve the reliability of supply to all the affected areas. The repaired old aqueduct and the new aqueduct will continue to supply water to the northern areas of eThekwini.”

Ednick Msweli, head of eThekwini water and sanitation, said since the records were from long ago they were in physical drawing format rather than a geographic information system but that had all been dealt with.

“We’ve got most of them [the asset records]. It’s not as though we don’t know [where the valves are],” said Msweli.

“What is being referred to is that when an air valve is buried you eventually get to a stage where you don’t know what that valve is buried under. You may know there is a valve there but you don’t know it’s condition because you haven’t accessed it for some time.”

Meanwhile, water supply to Ntuzuma will be limited by the repairs and imminent upgrade to the Ntuzuma pump station affected by fire last year.

This is despite eight valves in the section of the aqueduct from Umgeni River to Newlands, that supplies KwaMashu, Newlands and Ntuzuma, having been replaced and operational.

Mbhele also pointed out interventions the city has made, including the repairs and restoration of supply to areas supplied by the Hazelmere water treatment works and uThongathi water treatment plant by the end of January.

The city is drilling 40 boreholes in 21 rural wards, with 20 drilled providing water at the beginning of February, including Trenance Park, while some are awaiting commissioning after water testing.

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