The water supply to Kriel in Emalahleni Local Municipality was successfully restored on Friday 06 March 2015 well ahead of the scheduled date of 09 March 2015. The water treatment plant received water in the morning and started purification, and the community was receiving water later in the day.
Kriel was experiencing a water outage due to the Eskom 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 a related DWS outage to tie in with the permanent deviation of the pipeline to the existing structure as per DWS approved design. This also provided DWS with an opportunity to do maintenance work and repair leaks and replace valves on the pipeline.
As 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.
Regular scheduled and planned maintenance is crucial to ensure an increased life-span, as well as reliable and effective performance of water infrastructure. Infrastructure maintenance is therefore important to ensure sustainable water supply for current and future generations.
Planned infrastructure maintenance is important and ensures that communities experience minimal disruptions as they are consulted and engaged throughout the process and alternative supply is provided.
During the course of this outage, the community of Kriel was supplied with water through 31 strategically placed jojo tanks which were regularly supplied by 15 water tankers.
As a result of prior consultation with the municipalities and through councillors with the communities, all water users were timeously informed of the complete plans of the department such that no undue ill-feelings and lack of communication were experienced throughout the period of the outage.
The department continues to take vital lessons from these experiences that proper planning and execution, married to critical consultation with end users cannot be substituted. This experience will remain part of the department’s standing operations as further planned and needed outages on other pipelines continue to be rolled out.
The department and all stakeholders fully appreciate the patience and cooperation from all who were affected during the planned outage period. The importance of this planned outage could not be underplayed as it was vital for maintenance and sustainability of the infrastructure.
Enquiries:
Sputnik Ratau
Cell: 0828742942
