Part of Randwater’s ongoing maintenance is to look at the efficiency of existing infrastructure and ensure that it meets the current demand, not the demand it was planned for. One such project is connecting the existing reservoirs at their Waterval depot to accommodate demand increases.

Necessary measures

The Waterval depot has two reservoirs that supply bulk water to Johannesburg Water. Interconnectedness is a feature common among many water systems that fall under Randwater and Johannesburg Water. This means that reservoirs are not stand-alone and form part of a connected system where flow to one means flow to another. The two reservoirs at Waterval depot are not interconnected and go to different areas.

They were designed with area usage in mind and as some of the feeder areas are developing, the capacity does not match the demand. Randwater has taken this time of larger maintenance to update its Waterval system by means of matching the usual interconnectivity found in its systems.

Connecting the two reservoirs ensures a constant flow between them and when one area has higher demand the reservoirs can share the load. This is done to optimise the existing infrastructure instead of adding to it. The two reservoirs together are more than capable of supplying the two feeder areas.