Residents of Westbury and Coronationville, west of Johannesburg, will have to wait at least four months before they can expect a reliable water supply.
This is according to Johannesburg Water engineer Randhir Nico Singh, who addressed the crowd at Westbury yesterday after a protest about the erratic water supply.
The area has been struggling to get reliable water supply for the past four years due to problems at the Hurst Hill 1 reservoir, which worsened recently, leaving the area dry for two weeks.
Singh explained to residents that the Crosby pump station is under construction and will only be ready in about three to four months. He said the Brixton Reservoir tower and pump station is also nearing completion, with only a payment issue delaying final commissioning. “Between September and November, we could be having that section of works commissioned,” Singh said.
He said attention has also shifted to the Hurst Hill 1 and 2 reservoirs, which are part of Johannesburg Water’s leak repair programme. He said the city has 127 reservoirs, of which 44 have been identified as leaking and 22 are in different project phases.
Repairs to the Hurst Hill 1 reservoir are expected to begin in November. At Hurst Hill 2, the contractor has been appointed and is expected to move on site in the coming weeks. However, Singh cautioned that the repairs will take at least nine months to complete.
“You don’t go and patch. You’re going to end up with a problem three years down the line. You must do a proper repair,” he stressed.
In the meantime, Johannesburg Water is trying to balance water distribution between Brixton and neighbouring areas like Westbury and Coronationville.
Singh explained that some residents received water temporarily after the Brixton reservoir was closed the previous night. “That’s why you got a bit of water. We closed Brixton, and Serpentine was able to fill up the lines,” he said.
However, once Brixton was reopened at 50% capacity for equitable sharing, supply in Westbury and Coronationville dropped again. Residents questioned why Brixton could not be closed during the day to ensure fairer distribution.
“It’s unlike electricity, where you switch on and off,” Singh responded. “With water, when you open and close valves, it must travel through long pipes and fill up before you see the supply. If Brixton drops too low, we risk collapsing the entire Commando [Road] system.”
As part of short-term relief, Johannesburg Water is reconfiguring pumps at the Crosby pump station. One pump is operational while another is being swapped into position.
“The station will be shut down overnight, from 6pm until 4am, to complete the swap,” Singh explained. “Once that’s done, pump stations 1 and 2 will push more water down the line to improve supply in the affected areas.”
Earlier in the day, Westbury and Coronationville residents blocked numerous roads in the area to demand answers from Joburg Water.
“This government is frustrating us. We’ve kept quiet and adapted to this, but now we’ve had enough,” said Westbury resident Aiya Alister on why they, together with residents from Coronationville, embarked on the protest.
Alister said Joburg Water has frustrated them for many years, and so they decided to frustrate the system in return by ensuring that the roads were impassable.
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