Johannesburg Water said full recovery will take five to 14 days. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Store water from Sunday. That’s advice given by Johannesburg Water to its customers to accommodate Rand Water’s planned 58-hour shutdown next week.
The maintenance shutdown, which will affect almost 140 areas, will start from 7pm on Tuesday and end at 5am on Friday.
“Customers are requested to store water 48 hours … prior to the start of the shutdown,” the utility’s spokesperson Nombuso Shabalala said. “This is to help in sustaining capacity within the impacted reservoirs and towers.”
The purpose of the shutdown is to complete a tie-in with a new pipeline, install isolation valves and upgrade Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station, where power outages and pump failures have left taps dry in numerous areas in recent months.
Rand Water said the planned maintenance will be undertaken to replace multiple valves at the Vereeniging water treatment plant, Eikenhof booster pumping station and Zuikerbosch water treatment plant. The last part of the project will be to work on electrical boards at Lethabo pumping station.
Until Thursday, communication from Johannesburg Water was that the shutdown was scheduled to take place from 7pm on Tuesday and end at 3pm on Thursday. On Thursday, however, the utility said that Rand Water had advised of a correction to the completion date, which had been moved from 3pm Thursday to 5am on Friday.
During the shutdown, Johannesburg Water infrastructure supplied by Eikenhof pump station will have no water supply as well as those areas receiving direct supply from Rand Water, Shabalala said.
“Recovery can take between five and 14 days after the supply has been fully restored,” Johannesburg Water said in a communique to customers on Thursday. “Residents can start storing water a few days (two days or earlier) before the shutdown to reduce the impact on reservoirs and towers,” it said.
“Customers are requested not to store water on the day before the shutdown as some of Johannesburg Water’s reservoirs will already be isolated (closed) to retain capacity on the supply side. This is also for quicker recovery post the shutdown.”
The purpose of the shutdown was to upgrade infrastructure, improve its reliability and “keep it functioning optimally”, which would benefit users. “Reliability is compromised when maintenance is not conducted, which leads to unplanned shutdowns.”
Johannesburg Water would arrange for an alternative water supply at hospitals, clinics, schools, municipal offices, police stations and shopping centres.
Initially, the shutdown was scheduled from 20 to 22 June but Johannesburg Water requested a postponement to provide relief to those areas that had been experiencing water supply challenges in preceding weeks.
Rand Water said that some residents within the Rustenburg local municipality, Mogale City local municipality and the Rand West local municipality “will experience intermittent water supply” during the implementation of the project.
The following regions will be affected via Johannesburg Water reservoirs, towers and direct feeds:
Roodepoort/Randburg
Boschkop reservoir
Randpark Ridge reservoir
Cosmo City reservoir
Constantia tower and pump station
Helderkruin reservoir
Helderkruin tower
Corriemoor reservoir
Fairland reservoir
Florida North tower- and pump station
Quellerina tower
Waterval tower
Horison/ Finch tower
Honeydew reservoir
Olivedale reservoir
Honeydew tower
Blairgowrie reservoir
Linden 1 reservoir
Linden 1 tower
Linden 2 reservoir
Kensington B reservoir
Kensington B tower
Central
Aeroton reservoir
Aeroton tower
Berea reservoir
Parktown 1 and 2 reservoirs
Brixton reservoir
Brixton tower
Crosby reservoir
Hursthill 1 and 2 reservoirs
Northcliff reservoir
Northcliff tower
Crown Gardens reservoir
Crown Gardens towers
Foresthill tower
Hector Norris pump station
Yeoville 1, 2 and 3 reservoirs
Ennerdale
Orange Farm reservoir
Ennerdale 1 and 2 reservoirs
Lawley reservoir
Southdale
Eagles Nest reservoir
Kibler Park reservoir
Alan Manor reservoir
Glenvista reservoir
Soweto
Naturena reservoir
Chiawelo reservoir
Jabulani reservoir
Jabulani tower
Zondi reservoir
Zondi tower
Bramfischer reservoir 1
Doornkop reservoir
Meadowlands 1 and 2 reservoirs
Orlando East reservoir
Diepkloof reservoir
Power Park 1 and 2 reservoirs