The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is mandated to ensure security of water supply for all facets of the lives and livelihoods of South Africans. Part of this mandate includes regular maintenance of its infrastructure throughout the length and breadth of the land.
Eskom is busy with the construction of a railway line from Ermelo to Majuba Power Station. The railway line crosses the Department of Water and Sanitation’s (DWS) pipeline between Rietspruit reservoir and Davel. Eskom therefore requested an outage to tie in with the permanent deviation of the pipeline to the existing structure as per DWS approved design.
The deviation of the structure has been approved by the DWS engineers and the DWS engineers will be involved with the quality control during the construction phase. This also provides an opportunity for DWS to do maintenance work on the pipeline.
The DWS has already commenced with the outage which is scheduled for the period of 23 February to the 9 March.
During the course of this outage, the communities of Kriel in Emalahleni Local Municipality will be affected as they get bulk raw water supply from this pipeline. The Local municipality will communicate the various areas where the communities will receive water from water tankers.
The department and all stakeholders request patience and cooperation from all who will be affected during this planned outage period. DWS and Eskom believe that the outage period will not be exceeded.
All those who will be affected are implored to consider everyone in the supply system, to make storage preparations if possible and use available water sparingly and optimally.
The department apologises for the inconvenience caused. The importance of this planned outage is however important for maintenance and sustainability of the infrastructure for now and into the future.
For more information:
Nelly Ndumo
Central Operations
Tel: 012 741 7302
Leonardo Manus
National Water Resource Infrastructure Operations
Cell: 012 336 8092
Enquyiries:
Sputnik Ratau, Media Liaison Director
Cell: 082 874 2942
