Joburg gradually restores water to Sandton but South Hills to stay dry for more than 12 days — again

Water is expected to be restored to residents in the north of Johannesburg, but those in South Hills will again go nearly two weeks with no water — an issue its councillors have reported to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).

Taps ran empty earlier this week due to a problem at Rand Water’s Palmiet system, which halted pumping into reservoirs. The system was restored on Wednesday night and began pumping at full load.

The Grand Central and Errand 1 reservoirs recovered overnight, and pumping to the Grand Central tower and the Erand tower started on Thursday morning.

“The Sandton system has also improved slightly since [Wednesday] night and is supplying normally. As the system builds capacity, the recovery will be gradual in terms of restoration of water supply to the affected areas,” Johannesburg Water said in a notice on Thursday.

For South Hills tower, residents of Linmeyer and South Hills have been relying on water tankers as the water tower remains empty and they are expecting to stay dry for a fortnight. This prolonged outage comes after the communities recovered from a two-week water outage due to a sudden decrease in water capacity at the South Hills tower.

Frustrated ward 56 and 57 councillors Mike Crichton and Faeeza Chame lodged a complaint with the SAHRC on Wednesday over the ongoing water crisis in the area.

Crichton said it has been going on for an “unacceptably long period of time” and regular water outages have emanated from the South Hills tower for the past four years.

“As councillors, we will continue to exhaust all avenues available to us in terms of engaging with Johannesburg Water daily, asking questions in council ... We have submitted a motion to the council’s programming committee to consider placing this crisis on the next council agenda,” he said.

“However, we felt the need to also escalate this crisis to the SAHRC due to the fact that institutions like clinics and schools have been forced to close, and residents have been forced to live in unhygienic conditions.”

The city’s ward councillors met with the water entity earlier this week to discuss interventions for managing the shortage of water due to low reservoir capacity. Another meeting was scheduled for noon on Thursday, where Joburg Water was expected to continue its presentation.

Ward 90 DA councillor Martin Williams said the meetings also discussed the implementation of water restrictions between 9pm and 5am. “Water restrictions have remained the same for years. There is nothing new. For the Sandton system, we get a daily message to shut down the output for various reservoirs from 7pm to 4am,” he said.

He said the Palmiet system fed his ward through the Sandton system, but poor infrastructure had led to leakages which caused a waste of thousands of litres of water.

“There’s a burst not far from Sandton Drive. In July I requested that the pipe be replaced but it seems it is not happening,” he said.

“There are parts of Sandhurst where pipe replacement hasn’t happened in many years, and is long overdue. We were told that when Johannesburg Water says ‘high demand’, they not only include customers but include all that comes out of the system, such as underground leaks, visible leaks and stolen water.

“For that context, it is crazy to blame the residents and cut down on water when there are thousands of litres pouring all over the place. They don’t have the money or resources to fix those things.”

Meanwhile, residents of South Hills and Linmeyer were making use of water trucks brought to the community and would make use of three stationary tankers, said Crichton.

He said NGOs and good Samaritans offered to transport buckets of water to the elderly and injured who could not carry water themselves. 

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