News24 | Reservoir roulette: Will your area run dry during Rand Water maintenance?

• Johannesburg and Mogale City Local Municipality face water disruptions as Rand Water conducts 54-hour maintenance on key pipelines, with recovery expected to take up to seven days in affected areas.
• Contingency plans include water tankers and bypass systems, and residents are urged to conserve water as maintenance impacts major supply systems, with some reservoirs already under pressure due to high temperatures and demand.
• The final phase of the water maintenance will commence on 16 January, affecting the Fezile Dabi District Municipaity in the Free State.

Johannesburg water systems, which are set to be affected by the 54-hour Rand Water maintenance programme, have yet to show signs of struggle, according to reservoir levels reported by Johannesburg Water.

Rand Water commenced maintenance work at the Palmiet pump station on Tuesday morning, beginning with the replacement of valves and the meter on the F18 pipeline. This work is set to be completed on Wednesday night.

At the same time, the bulk water supplier began maintenance at its Eikenhof pump station to replace the isolation valves on the F45, F39, F28 and F15 pipelines. Work on this station is set for completion on Thursday night.

Although Eikenhof supplies two-thirds of Johannesburg’s residents, Johannesburg Water told reporters on Monday that only the systems serviced by those specific pipelines would be affected by the maintenance, which would include Soweto and Roodepoort.

They also include Kagiso in Mogale City Local Municipality.

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Rand Water will also be performing maintenance on Lethabo Pump 6 at the Lethabo Pumping Station, located in the Free State and affecting the Fezile Dabi District Municipality, from 16 to 17 January.

The Eikenhof pump station will continue pumping at full capacity to other Johannesburg water systems including Sandton, Randburg, and Midrand.

For now, those affected are:

At a press briefing on Monday, Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero warned that it may take seven days or more for the water systems to recover once maintenance is complete on 8 January.

Because most of the water systems in Johannesburg are gravity-fed, there needs to be sufficient water in the reservoirs to maintain the necessary pressure to supply high-lying areas. This is why low-lying regions are usually the last to experience water interruptions, and are usually the first to receive water once it starts to flow again.

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According to Johannesburg Water, the affected reservoirs were supplying normally from 2 to 5 January, leading up to the maintenance, except for Doornkop Reservoir (30 million-litre capacity) and Meadowlands Reservoir (20 million-litre capacity), which were slightly lower, but still supplying normally for the previous four days.

The utility said the impacted reservoirs could not be filled to more than 70% capacity “because of high demand in the supply zone”.

However, the reservoirs had not been throttled for the past two weeks in preparation for the maintenance, and the Doornkop reservoir was closed on Monday night before the shutdown.

Contingency measures during the outage include bypassing the water supply from areas that have recovered and supplying water tankers to residents without water.

Alternative water supply resources will remain on the ground until the water supply is restored, the mayor said.

In the affected regions, Johannesburg Water has made the following alternative water supplies available:

Soweto

• 42 Stationary water tanks
• 27 Outsourced mobile water tankers
• 1 Self-help filling station at the Klipspruit depot

Water tankers will use the Power Park Reservoir in Klipspruit and the Devland Reservoir in Devland to replenish the Soweto supply.

Roodepoort

• 25 Stationary tanks
• 16 Mobile water tankers
• 1 Self-help filling station at the Hamburg depot

Water tankers will use the Rand Water direct point at the Hamburg depot, and the Constantia Reservoir on West Lake Road for the Roodepoort supply.

Johannesburg Water also informed reporters on Monday that emergency meetings would be held with councillors.

On Tuesday morning, Johannesburg Water stated on its social media page on X that none of the water systems, including those affected by maintenance, are experiencing outages.

All systems in Roodepoort were supplying adequately for now, but the Robertville pump station, not under maintenance, was supplying fairly.

In Soweto, the Jabulani Reservoir, unaffected by the maintenance, was on bypass but supplying “fairly”; the rest were supplying “adequately” or “fairly”.

Rand Water supplies 18 municipalities, including Johannesburg, its largest customer, 46 mines, and 959 industrial and direct consumers.

Eikenhof pump station supplies Johannesburg, Mogale City, Merafong City, Rand West City, Madibeng, Rustenburg, and the Royal Bafokeng, as well as various mining and other industries.

On Tuesday morning, Rand Water warned residents in Kagiso to use water sparingly after maintenance began at 04:00.

While the reservoir levels were stable in the morning, it said that warm temperatures could increase water use. Rand Water requested that water consumption be limited to “essential household needs only” to help preserve reservoir levels for as long as possible.

Two hours after maintenance began, the Kagiso Reservoir stood at 58.4%, the Kagiso Ext 13 Reservoir was at 65%, and the Azaadville Reservoir was at 65%.