Pretoria - Water has been restored in parts of Tshwane after an outage that left residents with dry taps.
According to the municipality, the outage was due to the Rand Water supply system running low due to the recent power failures, which affected their operations.
Responding to questions sent by the Pretoria News, municipal spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the outage did not amount to a crisis, and confirmed that the hardest hit area was Soshanguve, however, water was now fully restored.
“Tshwane was affected by power failures impacting on Rand Water supply infrastructure on June 23. The City of Tshwane was notified by Rand Water about the inconsistent supply challenges that were under way, affecting Tshwane and other municipalities.
“This follows a number of power failures and trips experienced during this month of June at the Vereeniging and Zuikerbosch water treatment plants, as well as at the Palmiet, Eikenhof and Mapleton booster pumping stations.
“Due to these power failures, the entire water utility system has felt a knock-on effect of unstable supply and this resulted in the depletion of water in (a number of) Rand Water reservoirs,” he said.
Water tankers were dispatched to affected residents in Soshanguve, Mabopane and Ga-Rankuwa who had been without water for a few days after power interruptions at Rand Water pump stations.
Other areas in other municipalities that were affected include Brakpan, Vlakfontein, Klipfontein, Hartebeesthoek, Bronberge, Wildebeesfontein, Selcourt and Stompiesfontein.
Last week, Rand Water’s general manager for operations, Simon Xaba, said the municipalities experienced low water pressure to no water during the recovery of their system.
Mashego said the improvement of water supply came after the city’s reservoirs started filling up slowly at the weekend. By Sunday they were just over 20% full, while the Ga-Rankuwa reservoir was just below these levels, paving the way for full restoration by yesterday.
The city’s water woes have become a norm in recent months.
Last week, Unisa Sunnyside campus was forced to close down because of dirty tap water.
The decision to close the campus was a precautionary health and safety measure after the water turned dark brown, according to the university.
University spokesperson Tommy Huma reportedly said: “The quality of water at our Pretoria campuses is of concern at the moment. In many cases, it is dark brown water. As a precaution, management resolved that all members of staff not drink water from our taps until further notice.
“An external service provider has been appointed to test water for various bacteria, including cholera, at the municipal inlet point, our reservoir and the water line supply to the buildings and taps. The test results will be available in 10 days.”
Pretoria News