While a R4bn project to sort out the problematic Tshwane’s Rooiwal wastewater plant is being undertaken, a 2020 assessment report has shown that a separate water treatment plant for Hammanskraal residents is also riddled with efficiency and design problems.
There are now fears that the mega project, recently announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa, aimed at fixing the area's water quality issues, may not eradicate the problem that has led to water being delivered in privately owned water tankers as tap water is not fit for human consumption.
A report put together by Rand Water and completed in May 2020, picked up more than a dozen issues with the plant responsible for potable water in Hammanskraal.
The assessment showed that the Temba water treatment plant was unable to do its job due to design problems, broken valves and other system issues that needed urgent attention. It was commissioned at the time the city was placed under administration by the Gauteng provincial government.
The report, compiled by Rand Water, which TimesLIVE Premium has seen, unpacks some of the problems at the Temba treatment plant, which included leaks in air supply line filters, faulty raw water pumps, broken nozzles and malfunctioning raw water flow meters.
The 32-page report revealed, among other things, that there were:
• malfunctioning raw water flow meters;
• faulty raw water pumps;
• frequent system trips;
• lack of proper diagnosis of the problems;
• signs of dislodged or broken nozzles;
• insufficient water quality monitoring;
• no standby chlorination dosage pumps and;
• leaks in air supply lines.
Though the water collected from the Apies River was polluted, the Temba treatment plant still had its own problems which needed urgent fixing, according to the report.
Mayor Cilliers Brink’s office told TimesLIVE Premium he was not aware of the report.
Brink’s spokesperson Sipho Stuurman said it was the administrators who did not act on the report.
“The core driver of the poor-quality water at Temba plant is that Rooiwal is polluting the Apies River. The upgrades at Rooiwal are critical to improve the quality of raw water that Temba draws,” Stuurman said.
He said addressing most of the identified problems, including poor housekeeping, which were noted in the report, was ongoing and being attended to.
The report was compiled on the instruction from the department. Rooiwal wastewater treatment works’ challenges started in 2011. The poor raw water quality started to seriously affect the Temba water treatment plant around 2018/19.
— Departmental spokesperson
Wisane Mavasa
“Maintenance plans have been implemented at both Temba water treatment plant and Rooiwal based on available budget. Operations have improved significantly since 2020, however, budget availability and prioritisation has always meant Rooiwal takes precedent because the core issue to address is the pollution into the Apies [river],” Stuurman said.
Stuurman said system tripping due to power failures was addressed as the system is now exempt from load-shedding.
The department of water and sanitation echoed Stuurman’s views that sorting out Rooiwal was the priority.
This is the second report to be ignored by the City of Tshwane, after TimesLIVE Premium exclusively reported three weeks ago how a 2011 report, titled Improvement of the water quality in the Hammanskraal area acceleration of programme, was tabled before the mayoral committee and approved on November 16 2011 but was never implemented.
The 2011 report, drafted by then Tshwane head of infrastructure development Lefadi Makibinyane, proposed that the project to upgrade Rooiwal wastewater treatment works would have been undertaken in phases and would have cost R3bn less than it does now. Makibinyane left the city in 2013.
Makibinyane, who came back as one of the administrators when the city was put under administration in 2020, told TimesLIVE Premium that he was concerned that Temba water treatment plant was not getting the attention it deserved in sorting out tap water problems in Hammanskraal.
He said when their tenure as administrators was ended by the courts, they were ready to implement the recommendations of the report.
Departmental spokesperson Wisane Mavasa said the department was aware of the report and its findings.
“The report was compiled on instruction from the department. Rooiwal wastewater treatment works’ challenges started in 2011. The poor raw water quality started to seriously affect the Temba water treatment plant around 2018/19.
“It was at the time when the department started looking at the solutions for the Hammanskraal drinking water solution while engaging in lawful processes to resolve it when it instructed Rand Water to look at the solutions,” Mavasa said.
She said to solve the Hammanskraal drinking water challenges, attention needed to be on Rooiwal as the source of the pollution.
“Thereafter you are able to fix the minor problems at the Temba water treatment plant ... Some of the findings and recommendations of the reports, the blue report and any other report that highlight challenges in the Temba WTW will be considered when fixing the non-functional parts of the plant,” Mavasa said.
Hammanskraal recently was the epicentre of the cholera outbreak in the country, which has claimed more than two dozen lives.
The SA Human Rights Commission has had to intervene in the Hammanskraal water crisis and conducted tests with the help of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which found that tap water in the area was not safe for human consumption in 2019.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.