Residents in the north of Durban will have to endure a few more weeks, if not longer, of water outages. They had held on to hope that the promises made by the Minister of Water and Sanitation Senzo Mchunu on February 4, that water would be restored by today, Thursday February 15. It would have made their lives easier, but sadly that will not be the case.
Earlier this month Mr Mchunu held a meeting with residents from Verulam, Phoenix and Tongaat north of Durban to provide updates on measures aimed at resolving water supply challenges in the three areas. He promised the water would be running by today, Thursday February15 and said that no efforts would be spared in resolving these water supply challenges.
When the minister addressed the media yesterday, Wednesday February 14, at the Durban ICC, he said technical teams had been at work trying to resolve the water interruptions and regular monitoring meetings had been held to assess progress.
“The Municipality has been implementing various interventions to improve the performance of the old northern aqueduct, including reducing leaks and replacing defective air valves. These interventions were planned to be completed on February 15,” said Mr Mchunu.
He added that to date the municipality had replaced 54 air valves. These interventions are being carried out on four sections of the aqueduct, he said.
On the first section of the aqueduct from Durban Heights Waterworks to Umgeni River, six air valves were serviced and one air valve was replaced. Work has been completed on this section, he said.
On the second section of the aqueduct from Umgeni River to Newlands, eight air valves has been replaced. This section has been completed and is operating well and has improved water supply to Newlands, KwaMashu and Ntunzuma. Water supply to Ntunzuma is however still limited by the ongoing repairs and imminent upgrade to the Ntuzuma Pump Station, which was affected by fire.
On the third section from Newlands to Phoenix, 31 air valves have been replaced and six are outstanding as they require modification to fit the new valves into the network which also requires a shut down.
“This modification work was not foreseen when the work was planned to be completed by February 15. We wish to apologise to the affected residents who are still without water supply,” said Minister Mchunu. “The existing aqueduct and its valves are decades old, and maintenance and asset records are not available for some of the valves inside the chambers along the pipeline. In addition, there is housing encroachment on some areas of the pipeline servitude making access problematic and therefore making it difficult to know what types of valves were under the encroachment.”
He added that modification or fabrication work is under way and is planned to be completed by Wednesday February 21.
Mr Mchunu said due to the modification work required for these valves, it is necessary to isolate portions of the pipeline for the new valves to be installed. In order for this to not result in additional supply interruptions, the installation of these six air valves is also being timed to coincide with the commissioning of the relevant portion of the new aqueduct, so that water can continue to be supplied to communities. This work is planned to be completed by the end of February 2024, he said.
