Residents fear an imminent and severe water shortage throughout Limpopo province in the wake of recent water cuts and shortages in the Polokwane municipality.
Rob Saunders, a Polokwane resident, told the Mail & Guardian this week the “whole town” had been without clean water supply for the past three weeks. “Taps are drying. We use buckets to collect water from tanks. The situation is terrible,” he said.
He also claimed the municipal council knew about the looming water crisis three years ago, but did not plan adequately for the increased water demand due to booming business and housing developments.
Simon Mokoatedi, the municipality’s spokesperson, confirmed that it is experiencing a dilemma. However, he dismissed claims by some residents that all the households and businesses in the area have been affected by the problem.
“Affected households are mostly those built in high-lying areas. This is because water levels in the reserves are so low because of drought and there is not enough pressure from the pumps to transfer water into households,” he said.
Mokoatedi said about seven interim taps have been set up in the worst-affected residential areas, which are open every day from 6am to 9am and between 5pm and 7pm. Water is also being supplied to affected schools and clinics.
‘No crisis’
Although the water shortage has been ongoing for almost a week, it is “no crisis”, he said. “Of course if there is no water in a household, obviously it will be an inconvenience … but most areas have got water.”
He blamed the situation on a “build-up” of events, including more than two months of low rainfall and a heat wave that resulted in higher water consumption from households in the area. Also adding to the problem was the loss of 13 boreholes after electricity cables were stolen.
But the main cause, Mokoatedi said, was Eskom national power outages in January, which caused the city’s main water sources to stop pumping for an extended period of time.
The Ebenezer Dam pump station and the Olifants/Sand water-transfer scheme responsible for pumping water into Polokwane reservoirs experienced a combined 53-hour power failure last month, during which no water was transferred. “The outflow continued, but there was no inflow,” he said.
Back-up plans
Kobus Burger, of the municipality’s water and sanitation department, said that as far as he was aware, there were no generators or back-up plans put in place for situations like these. “But as a result of this [power outage] I believe they are now in meetings to discuss it,” he added.
Although the water-transfer pumps are now back to normal, Mokoatedi said there is still “very little inflow of water into the reservoir”. As a result, the municipality will minimise the flow in certain areas in a bid to restore Polokwane’s water supply fully by the end of the weekend.
However, he said residents continue to water their gardens and wash their cars with hosepipes, which adds to the strain on the municipality’s water resources.