Joburg residents should brace themselves — and start filling up buckets of water — ahead of a scheduled maintenance shutdown that will result in water cuts throughout parts of the city next week.

Johannesburg Water says that this shutdown is necessary to complete maintenance and upgrade requirements at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station.

As Rand Water supplies water to Johannesburg Water reservoirs, many customers who rely on those systems — as well as areas receiving direct water supply from Rand Water — will have no water supply during the shutdown, which is scheduled to take place from next week Tuesday night (7pm) to Friday morning (5am), (11 – 14 July), and possibly a few days after as the system restores itself.

The Rand Water Daleside pump station will also be impacted during the shutdown, as well as Johannesburg Water’s Yeoville reservoir. 

Jhb Water said that initially the planned shutdown was scheduled from 20 to 22 June, but the entity requested the postponement in order to provide relief to those areas that had been experiencing water supply challenges in the preceding weeks. 

Jhb Water estimates that full recovery of the systems can take between five and 14 days after the supply has been fully restored on Friday morning.

As Logan Munsamy, the technical director of Johannesburg Water explained during last year’s water restrictions, “water is not like electricity. [With] electricity, if there’s a power failure, when power comes back, you hit a switch and the light comes back in a few seconds, or even in a second.

“With water, you’re supplying water through a long series of pipelines. If a reservoir goes low or empty, it takes sometimes up to days, even weeks to recover that storage.” 

Tsakane residents get water during water shortages from a government truck at Tsakane Informal Settlement on 21 October 2022 in Tsakane, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / OJ Koloti)

Why is this happening?

The purpose of the planned shutdown is to complete a tie-in between the A19 and B14 pipelines with a new pipeline, installation of isolation valves, and systems upgrades at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station. 

According to Johannesburg Water, a shutdown of a pump station is needed to provide a window period for maintenance interventions which cannot be executed while the plant is operational. 

And that maintenance shutdown is beneficial, “to upgrade the infrastructure, improve its reliability, and keep it functioning optimally and improve its reliability.

The entity added, “reliability is compromised when maintenance is not conducted, which leads to unplanned shutdowns. A reliable plant is a safe plant.”

Professor Anthony Turton, a water resource management specialist at the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State explained to Daily Maverick that it is necessary for maintenance and upgrades to necessitate shutdowns. 

“Those pipelines are hundreds of kilometres long containing millions of litres of water at very high pressure,” said Turnton, who was also the former vice-chair of the research advisory panel for the National Water Resource Strategy at the CSIR. 

“It’s impossible to weld the necessary hardware onto a steel pipe under pressure. 

“The real story is that Joburg Water has lost its buffering ability because of reduced storage capacity per capita. This amplifies the impact on the customers.”

Residents are seen collecting water from water tankers due to water outages in Yeoville on Friday, May 12, 2023. (Photo: Leon Sadiki)

What you need to do to prepare

Johannesburg Water asked customers this week to start storing water at least 48 hours before the start of the shutdown (which is this Sunday, 9 July), or earlier, to sustain capacity within the impacted infrastructure. 

This will not only reduce the impact on reservoirs and towers but aid in a quicker recovery post shutdown.

However, Johannesburg Water asked customers not to store water on the day before the shutdown, as some of its reservoirs will already be closed to retain capacity on the supply side.

Johannesburg Water said they would make arrangements for alternative water supply at hospitals, clinics, schools, municipal offices, police stations and shopping centres. 

See if you are affected and where to get your alternative supply

To see if your suburb is supplied by the affected reservoirs (below), towers and direct feeds, click on these links: reservoirs, towers, direct feeds.

Check out where to go to get an alternative water supply:

Please use these alternative places to get water during the water shutdown. AG^ pic.twitter.com/6Ugo0xJ64A

— Johannesburg Water (@JHBWater) July 6, 2023

Check official Johannesburg Water social media platforms to get regular updates on affected infrastructure (reservoirs, towers and direct feeds) and alternative supply. DM