117 hours of water outages hitting Joburg, Pretoria and Ekurhuleni this week – areas affected

Rand Water has entered its final week of maintenance and upgrades to main water systems in Gauteng, with just two more projects to go through.

The next project will be augmentation and flexibility maintenance of the Mapleton system on Friday, 26 July), which is expected to run for 77 hours over the coming weekend.

This will then lead to the replacement of defective valves at plants impacting the Palmiet system next Monday, 29 July, which will run for 40 hours.

The extensive infrastructure maintenance programme has been running since 22 June, with the first phase ending on 30 June and the second phase running from 1 July to 13 July.

The third phase started on Monday, July 15, and will run until the end of the month.

The water utility completed maintenance work at the Zwartkopjes Pump Station at the end of June, and the maintenance work at the Eikenhof station was completed in early July.

The final week of the project will focus on the Palmiet and Mapleton stations, which will experience outages and reduced pressure between 15 and 29 July.

Even though maintenance work is expected to be completed on time, local water utilities have warned that it may take longer for pressure to return to normal.

For instance, Joburg Water alerted residents in Midrand on Monday (22 July) that some systems are still in recovery following the second phase of the project in mid-July.

It warned that systems are constrained due to demand exceeding available supply, and as such, the entity was implementing interventions to balance the system and equitably distribute capacity.

This will impact systems attached to the Grand Central reservoir, E-Rand 1 and 2, President’s Park and the Rabie Ridge reservoirs.

Rand Water called on all water users in the metros to curb their water usage, stressing that storage levels are low.

“The lower the storage, the bigger the risk of water supply issues. Therefore, Metros must reduce consumption in order to boost storage and avert a supply interruption possibility,” it said.

The major metros in Gauteng have been aware of the maintenance for months ahead of the programme and have been keeping residents up to date with the days and times they will be affected.

Residents have been urged to keep an eye on their municipalities’ respective social media and news channels for information on the various measures that have been put in place.

Final week (22 – 29 July)

Mapleton System (26 July to 29 July)

• On 26 July 2024, there will be no pumping for 77 hours.

Palmiet System (29 July)

• On 29 July 2024, the system will be pumping at 76% for 40 hours.

The tables below outline which areas will be impacted by work being done in the final phase.

Joburg

Ekurhuleni (a detailed breakdown of extensions and specifics can be found here)

Tshwane

The City of Tshwane said its reservoirs would be impacted by both the Palmiet and Mapleton maintenance.

This means that suburbs in the city can expect to be impacted by the Palmiet outages on 29 July, as well as the durations listed above in terms of the Mapleton outages between 26 and 29 July.

The full list of impacted reservoirs and suburbs is extensive, and can be found here.

During the maintenance period, households, businesses and residents have been urged to avoid using water unnecessarily and to observe the following conservation measures:

• Do not water or irrigate gardens with hosepipes or sprinkler systems between 06h00 and 18h00.
• Do not wash vehicles with hosepipes.
• Do not fill swimming pools.
• Install a low-flow shower head and tap aerators where possible.
• Use a dual-flush toilet cistern.
• Plant indigenous or drought-resistant shrubs in the garden.
• Use a broom instead of a hosepipe when cleaning driveways or patios.
• Collect rainwater to reuse in the garden or wash the car.
• Cover the swimming pool to reduce water evaporation.
• Take a short shower rather than a bath.
• Close a running tap while brushing your teeth or shaving.
• Regularly check toilets and taps for leaks.

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