Durban North councillors have praised the eThekwini Municipality for their speed in dealing with water issues. Despite residents waking up to disrupted water supply recently, the councillors have shared that the municipality has found a way for the reservoirs to always be filled. Additionally, they call for the municipality to invest in replacing old pipes with plastic pipes.
Ward 35, councillor Bradley Singh shared that on Saturday, there was a burst pipe at Virginia Tower that temporarily affected water supply. He said plumbers were dispatched for necessary repairs and water was supplied soon afterwards. “The system is pressurised as valves are closed at night to build up storage. The reticulation system is not designed for opening and closing and due to ageing infrastructure, there are numerous pipes and meter bursts that occur.” Singh gave praise to the municipality and said that they have finally discovered a way where the reservoir levels are not super low.
Ward 36 councillor, Heinz de Boer, said they haven’t had a main trunk burst in a while and smaller bursts are dealt with quickly. He added that the reservoirs are usually full, however the Effingham reservoir that feeds some parts of his ward, has been problematic. “This reservoir has been problematic for the past few months. For some reason, it’s just not filling up. There are a lot of burst meters and pipes leading to water meters, which forms part of the water loss prevention programme which is supposed to be implemented by the city as they are supposed to reduce the pressure within the pipes.”
De Boer added that most of the bursts wouldn’t take place if there wasn’t so much pressure within these pipes. “If the city invests in the pipe replacement project which existed 10-15 years ago, then there shouldn’t be a problem. The problem is that we don’t have the budget for it. We are reactive to water loss, and when a pipe bursts, we fix it and then it bursts again. We are not proactive in reducing the pressure and replacing lines with new plastic pipes instead of the old asbestos pipes.”
Ward 34 councillor, Andrew Akkers, said that during weekend the Effingham reservoir levels had recovered but still remains low. Residents who are affected by low water reserves are urged to stock up.
“I have spoken to our water operations area manager, Jabulani Mayise, and he has informed me that they suspect an underground main line burst and have teams out trying to locate/establish where this burst is. As per telemetry, water supply to the Effingham Reservoir is normal, yet the levels are still dropping – currently at 0,43m. I have also contacted the control to request water tankers to service the affected roads. They have informed me that they have no reports on the system of water outages in Avoca or Kenville.”
Akkers called for affected residents who are currently without water, to report this for the control to try and pinpoint where the fault could be and for them to prioritise water tanker/s to be dispatched. Additionally, if residents have reported, please could they update the details on the fault reporting template https://forms.gle/RkW6huAWaAUQXJu99 and he will forward these to the water tanker controller.
He echoed the other councillors’ sentiments and said despite the responses with temporary band aid repairs, the city still needs to upgrade to PVC pipes, and that most of the informal settlements in his ward still experience multiple bursts since COVID-19 times. “Our municipality is now installing water restrictors to resident meters, they should first attend to all these long outstanding reported leaks, ageing infrastructure and non-revenue water being wasted at our informal settlements.”
