Ekurhuleni says power failures affecting Rand Water infrastructure have disrupted supply, with Churchill and Signal Hill systems still struggling to recover.
Residents in parts of Ekurhuleni have endured days of intermittent or no water supply, with some streets reportedly experiencing disruptions for as long as 22 days amid electricity failures affecting Rand Water’s water treatment infrastructure.
Ward 36 councillor Wendy Morgan said Primrose was on its seventh day of intermittent to no water supply, while some streets had been affected for more than three weeks.
Morgan said that despite Rand Water indicating that it was pumping at full capacity, residents in Primrose, Dawnview and surrounding areas continued to experience unreliable supply.
She said the Churchill pump station, which supplies Dawnview and Primrose, as well as the Signal Hill system serving Ward 20, remained affected.
Bedfordview residents were also reportedly receiving water for only a few hours overnight and, occasionally, for a few hours during the day before the supply was interrupted again.
In response, Gregory Molokwane, divisional head of operations at the City of Ekurhuleni’s Water and Sanitation Business Unit, attributed the latest disruptions to two separate electricity supply trips involving Eskom and City Power.
He said the incidents affected Rand Water plants supplying the Palmiet pump station, which feeds the Churchill pumps in Dawnview.
According to Molokwane, Rand Water had resumed full pumping following the latest incident on Tuesday night, but the Palmiet system was still recovering before it could restore normal supply to affected areas.
He said the Churchill pumps and booster pump station were switched on on Wednesday morning, supplying affected areas for a few hours before the system lost supply again.
“The system has now lost supply in the past hour and we alerted Rand Water about the latest regression,” Molokwane said.
He described the Churchill pump station and Signal Hill reservoir zone as sensitive systems that were among the last to recover whenever Rand Water experienced supply disruptions.
Molokwane said Rand Water had indicated that it planned to undertake pipe connections on its newly constructed O6 Pipeline around late November.
The planned connections are expected to supplement water supply to the pipelines serving the Churchill pump station and Signal Hill reservoir, potentially improving recovery times following future disruptions once the connections have been completed successfully.
The City said it continued to engage Rand Water through daily Joint Operations Committee meetings to monitor the status of water systems and address supply challenges.
Molokwane said the Churchill pump station’s difficulties had been raised during these engagements, with Rand Water requesting that other metropolitan municipalities implement restrictions on their systems to help the upstream Churchill and Signal Hill systems recover.
He added that further interventions were planned for Wednesday night following resolutions taken during the morning’s meetings.
The City said it had communicated the emergency outage and deployed water tankers, while continuing to monitor the system and engage Rand Water on restoring supply.
“The City apologises for the inconvenience caused and is willing to have further engagements on the matter,” Molokwane said.