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City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero and Joburg Water board chair Dineo Majavu at a press briefing on Monday ahead of the 54-hour water outage.
- Johannesburg residents may face up to seven days without water after Rand Water’s 54-hour maintenance, with reservoirs needing time to stabilise and recover.
- Large areas of the city, including Randburg, Sandton and Midrand, are expected to be unaffected by the outages.
- The City says it has contingency plans, including water tankers and bypass systems, to mitigate the impact of maintenance that affects multiple reservoirs and pipelines.
Residents may have to wait at least seven days before they receive water after Rand Water maintenance concludes in Johannesburg and its surrounding areas on 8 January.
In a press briefing on Monday, Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero stated that due to the gradual depletion of water in the reservoirs during the 54-hour maintenance, residents in the affected areas may experience low water pressure or no water until 13 January.
This comes as bulk water supplier Rand Water begins the third leg of its maintenance programme to upgrade and fix its infrastructure that supplies the city.
Johannesburg Water, a customer of Rand Water, is also plagued by issues such as leaks and infrastructure backlogs, which amount to R32 billion.
“After maintenance ends and pumping resumes… systems will not recover immediately. Johannesburg Water’s infrastructure will require at least seven days to stabilise and recover fully,” Morero told the media on Monday.
He added that the City had implemented “extensive” operational and contingency plans to reduce the impact of the maintenance, which include managing reservoir levels to ensure they are full before the repairs, and having response teams on standby as well as water tankers where needed.
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Morero said councillors in affected wards were briefed during a meeting on Monday morning.
“We acknowledge the inconvenience this maintenance will cause to households, businesses, and institutions across Johannesburg. However, this work is essential to safeguarding the city’s long-term water security,” Morero stated.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Rand Water will work on the F18 pipeline, from Palmiet, to replace the valves and meters. This will only affect customers on these lines.
From Tuesday to Thursday, Rand Water will replace the isolation valves on four pipelines supplied via the Eikenhof system.
The Johannesburg Water systems affected by the maintenance are:
- The Roodepoort Deep Reservoir, which supplies Hamberg, Rand Leases, Roodepoort, Creswell Park and surrounds.
- Fleurhof Reservoir, which supplies Fleurhof, Lea Glen and surrounds.
- Doornkop Reservoir, which supplies Eldorado Park, Nancefield, Pimville, Devland and surrounds.
- Meadowlands Reservoir 1 and 2, including direct feeds, which supply Dobsonville, Jabavu, Orlando, Mofolo, Dube and surrounds.
- Braamfischer Reservoir, which supplies Braamfischer, Meadowlands, Mmesi Park and surrounds.
Large areas of the city, including Randburg, Sandton and Midrand, are expected to be unaffected by the maintenance.
“There may be instances where water doesn’t recover in seven days,” Morero warned. However, in such instances, Johannesburg Water will continue to supply water to residents and investigate the matter to determine if there are air pockets or burst pipes in the system.
He added that where one area was fully recovered, the system would be put on bypass to help struggling systems.
Rand Water supplies 18 municipalities, including Johannesburg, its largest customer, 46 mines, as well as 959 industrial and direct consumers.
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Eikenhof pump station supplies two-thirds of Johannesburg. It also supplies Mogale City, Merafong City, Rand West City, Madibeng, Rustenburg and Royal Bafokeng, as well as mining and other industries that get water directly from the pump.
Palmiet supplies the City of Tshwane, the City of Johannesburg, the City of Ekurhuleni, and the Madibeng Local Municipality.
Morero told the media that Johannesburg Water required R3 billion a year to operate and maintain its infrastructure. He said that in this financial year, the City could only afford up to R1.7 billion.
Meanwhile, maintenance will also be performed on Lethabo Pump 6 at the Lethabo Pumping Station in the Free State from 16 to 17 January as part of this third leg of maintenance.
This will affect the Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark and Sasolburg systems. It may take several days for the water supply to recover fully after the maintenance is completed.
