Last year’s glitches that resulted in almost a month long water supply interruption in parts of the Gauteng province has posed a challenge to all municipalities to better prepare themselves for such incidences.

In this regard, the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) says it is working on a future Water Management Plan to cater for such events.

An early warning system

One component in the plan, according to the municipality, is the exploration of an early warning system which would be used to indicate dropping water levels in EMM’s storage reservoirs and allowing for speedy intervention.

This will be achieved through a telemetric type system that will synchronise all reservoirs in Ekurhuleni, making it easy to divert water from one supply zone to another.

This process will also include the harmonisation of the Metro’s underground infrastructure so that municipal potable water supply zones are aligned to enable to distribute potable water from one supply zone to another, where practically possible.

Two additional reservoirs

The Metro is currently working on constructing two additional water reservoirs, in Palm Ridge and Etwatwa x19, which are expected to be complete in 2016/2017 financial year.

Gadebe adds that the municipality will also pull out all the stops to ensure that more portable storage water reservoirs are built by the year 2021, in anticipation of future supply risk and population growth due to urbanisation.

Additional reservoirs to be built are follows:

• 20Ml reservoir in Brakpan estimated R25million.
• 11Ml reservoir in Masetchaba View estimated R18million.
• 26Ml reservoir at Russel road estimated R34million.
• 10Ml reservoir in Etwatwa estimated R20million.
• 1.1Ml water tower in Etwatwa estimated R10million.
• 5Ml water tower in Northmead estimated R32million.
• 13Ml reservoir in Dunottar estimated R23million.
• 1Ml water tower in Visagie Park estimated R10million.
• 25Ml reservoirs in Bredell estimated R31.12million.

Furthermore, the construction of the above-mentioned two storage reservoirs which will add additional water storage capacity soon is already in an advanced stage of planning.

Germiston was the hardest hit during the potable water challenges in September 2014, and as such a dedicated feeder line to the existing Russell road reservoir will be in place before the end of 2015/2016.

“South Africa is by its nature a semi-dessert area and Gauteng was built far from natural dams in the chase for mining prosperity, which calls on everyone in the province and Ekurhuleni region in particular to use water sparingly, curtailment of dripping taps and report any visible leakages,” Ekurhuleni Spokesperson Themba Gadebe said.

The municipality will augmented these interventions by intensifying the implementation of the water conservation and water demand management programmes.