Residents living in Lenasia will be without water in the evenings for the next month as Johannesburg Water undertakes a water balancing exercise in the area.

MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services Department Nico de Jager says this is necessary to address the imbalance in water supply to the area.

“Johannesburg Water is currently doing water balance for the Lenasia area due to water demand in certain portions of Lenasia that exceeds supply. The balancing takes some trial tests as it is something new and might take several weeks to get the balance to the designed minimum storage,” he explains.

In order to ensure constant water supply during the day we have to shut down certain Reservoirs (while busy doing the water balance) to increase storage that will enable us to supply water.

The Lenasia area is fed through 3 reservoirs which include Lenasia Cosmos which supplies Lenasia CBD including Lenasia extensions, the Lenasia Hospital Hill reservoir which supplies Lenasia South and Finetown and the Lenasia High Level which supplies Zakkariya Park, Vlakfontein and portions of Lehae.

“We are interchanging the reservoirs in shutting them down depending on which area has achieved highest demand during the day, so far Lenasia Hospital hill which supplies Lenasia South and Finetown is the one that is struggling with the water demand and will be the one that we will do shutdown while monitoring the situation,” De Jager notes.

According to De Jager the operation will take place between 21H30 and 03H00 during the fasting month to ensure that those involved in fasting are not negatively affected.

“We urge members of the community especially those who will need water during the shutdown hours to store the water that they will need to portable storage, he concluded.