The Heyshope water system is going to be out of action for 10 days due to a planned maintenance outage by the Department of Water and Sanitation.

The outage, which will run from 12 to 21 June 2015, will allow the department to undertake maintenance and rehabilitation work on the necessary infrastructure in order to ensure sustainable supply of bulk water for the future.

Work will be conducted on the canal, valves and the bulk pipeline that transfer water from the Heyshope Dam to the Driefontein Water Treatment Works.

This will interrupt the normal water supply to the communities of Driefontein, Kwa Ngema and Dirkiesdorp in Mkhondo Local Municipality for a period of approximately 10 days.

According to the department contingency plans have been put in place and they have consulted with the affected stakeholders to ensure that communities experience minimal negative impacts of the outage and maintenance of the scheme.

“During the outage, communities in the affected areas will be supplied with water through water tankers placed strategically at close proximity for convenient access to minimise the impact of the outage,” says Sputnik Ratau, departmental spokesperson.

The affected communities can contact their respective municipality and the department for updates relating to the outage.

“A list of the areas where water tankers will be disseminated once finalised for the community to know where to access them,” adds Ratau.