Durban — For some residents of extension one in Shallcross who have had intermittent water supply since the April floods, it will be exactly five days on Monday since they had running tap water.
An elderly resident, 72, who preferred not to be named, said that the water crisis in the area was an absolute disaster.
“Tankers are very erratic, there’s no planned schedule. We have had to get water from relatives. The worst part is that there’s no feedback as to what’s going on. The problem started after the April floods – we have water for a couple of days then we don’t have it for a week. It is very inconvenient, especially for the older folk.”
Another pensioner who lives with her 82-year-old husband said they had been without water for four full days.
“The tanker comes once in four days then not at all. What about our toilets and washing when we have no one to carry the water for us? There’s no information to say we will be without water when. This week we only had water on Wednesday,” said the resident on Sunday when a water tanker arrived.
Another resident, Pamela Singh, said that ever since the floods, water had become a major issue in most of the province.
“We bore with it, we knew what the situation was because we were timeously informed by Umgeni Water as to what was going on. Now, today is exactly two months and the water has been on and off.”
She said there were hardly any water tankers that came to their area adding that they were fortunate to have four boreholes nearby belonging to private individuals who had granted the community permission to use them.
“The recent spate of lack of water has seen houses on Cathedral, Granada, Simla, Helwin and Klaarwater streets having water now and then intermittently. The reservoir (Klaarwater Reservoir) gets dried up and there’s no water.”
Singh said after not having water from Friday at 5am, on Saturday the water came back in houses on her street.
“The water was very low pressure, it literally trickled out and we couldn’t do much, such as cleaning with it, or consider filling up (buckets) as we had to think about other residents. By 6pm the water stopped – even now there is no water.”
Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said the situation was beyond the control of the city until the refurbishment of reservoir three and the repair of two aqueducts damaged by the April floods was complete.
“I have heard that work will be starting very soon. A contractor has been appointed to fix these two aqueducts that were damaged by the floods. We sincerely apologise to the public.”
He explained that the area’s water woes were as a result of the capacity at Durban Heights Water Treatment Works which is owned by Umgeni adding that until the facility was back in full operation the city would try to disburse water equitably.
He said that while reservoir three was being refurbished the city relied on reservoir two, which did not have the capacity to supply water to almost all the areas.
“We have resorted to rationing. What has compounded our woes was that aqueducts that carry raw water from Nagle Dam to Durban Heights were damaged. This meant that now we rely on two aqueducts to supply Durban Heights,” said Mayisela.
He said that another aqueduct coming from Inanda Dam was used to supplement Durban Heights but this was still not enough considering the number of areas that relied on this system.
Daily News