Residents in Johannesburg still have no water after Rand Water maintenance that ended two weeks ago. (Alfonso Nqunjana/News24)
- Air in the Illovo water system is blocking supply despite recent reconfiguration efforts.
- Johannesburg Water is working to remove the airlock, while residents continue to experience shortages.
- The entity will meet with ward councillors to discuss mitigation strategies, and will prioritise the Illovo system.
Johannesburg Water believes that an airlock in the Illovo system may be preventing water from reaching residents’ taps.
This comes after the Rand Water maintenance ended two weeks ago.
Johannesburg Water executives will meet with ward councillors in Illovo on Monday morning to discuss the mitigation strategies the entity will implement to boost water supply.
Rand Water, responsible for treating and supplying bulk water, completed a month-long maintenance that brought most of Johannesburg’s water systems to a standstill for days -and even weeks in some places.
The maintenance ended with the Palmiet pump station – which
supplies Sandton, Midrand, South Hills and Alexandra Park in Johannesburg – on
31 July, but the reservoirs and towers it supplies are still recovering.
On Thursday last week, Johannesburg Water restricted the
Sandton water system, supplying it through a bypass to help stabilise the
systems supplied by Palmiet.
The company stated:
The reservoirs were unfortunately depleted during the process of assisting the Palmiet system. All other reservoirs in the Sandton system have begun to recover, with the exception of the Illovo system, which is most vulnerable.
On Sunday, Johannesburg Water said its teams would
reconfigure the Sandton system to shift water to the Illovo one.
It predicted that this would enable an adequate supply of
water on Monday.
But, in a statement on Monday, the company said that
reconfiguring the system “did not yield the desired results”.
It said:
Preliminary investigations point to the existence of an airlock on the system that may be blocking water from reaching the Illovo reservoir complex.
Johannesburg Water said this was their conclusion, as the
Illovo reservoir was the only one in the Sandton system that did not get water
supply.
Technical teams are now scouring air from the system.
According to Johannesburg Water, the Bryanston, Linbro,
Marlboro, and Morningside reservoirs were supplying normally.
However, residents in some of these areas complained that
they still had no water.
On social media site X, Smiley Loe said: “How is the
Morningside reservoir supplying normally when there’s no water still?”
Aileen said: “How long will this take? Please
advise soonest, Central Avenue Illovo, we are going out of [our] minds.”
Hermione
Atacolodjou said: “Please tell us something it’s been 24 hours
without water in Silvamonte.”
Theo said:
“No water in Sandown Sandton for the past three days.”
Johannesburg Water said it would continue to monitor the
Sandton system, prioritising the Illovo water system.
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