WATCH | Joburg Water confident taps will flow by the weekend

Joburg Water says it is confident most areas affected by Rand Water’s planned maintenance will have fully recovered by the weekend with reservoir levels steadily improving across the city.

On Wednesday, the utility provided an update on the recovery of its systems after completion of the first phase of Rand Water’s maintenance programme which began on May 29.

Joburg Water senior manager for water demand management Logan Munsamy said all maintenance work had been completed successfully and according to schedule.

“On a high-level note, the maintenance interventions went according to plan. It’s mainly owing to proper planning from the Rand Water side and Johannesburg Water and the affected municipalities,” he said.

Munsamy said several systems that were heavily affected had shown significant improvement.

“The systems in the main are normalised. Most systems have recovered, while others are recovering through reconfiguring our systems and boosting capacities,” he said.

The Crown Gardens system in the south of Johannesburg, one of the areas most affected by the maintenance, had recovered to 47% by Wednesday morning.

“We are fully opening those outlets to recharge those areas.

“There will be pockets of areas fed by Crown Gardens that experience intermittent supply, and we are supporting the recovery of those systems,” he said.

In the Commando system, which serves areas including Brixton and Crosby, reservoir levels had increased to 33% from only 11% the previous day.

Munsamy said technical teams were on the ground addressing airlocks in pipelines affecting some higher-lying areas.

“All reservoirs are looking good. The rest of the Sandton systems are healthy and supplying without any challenges,” she said.

“In the next few days, we should have full recovery of the Erand and Grand Central systems.”

While some communities may experience low pressure or intermittent outages as reservoirs continue to refill, Johannesburg Water said the overall trajectory was positive.

City Power MD Ntshavheni Mukwevho said they want the system to be back at 60%.

“We are sitting at 49% this morning, which is up from 42% from the previous week, so we are making progress, but obviously this does not mean the system is stable. We want to operate a system that sits at 60% plus,” he said.

The entity is preparing for the next phase of Rand Water’s maintenance programme scheduled for July 17.

It will involve Eskom conducting electrical maintenance at the Zwartkopjes system.

Sowetan