Desperate measures — Joburg residents pushed to the brink after days and even weeks without water

“Is this our last year?” asks principal Michelle Pellaton-Emerick of the Key School for children with autism in Parktown West, Johannesburg.

There has been no water in Parktown West for the past 19 days. On Tuesday, pupils at the school had already missed two days of schooling because the toilets were blocked.

“We are a tiny NPO which relies on private donations to keep the school open. We do not have the money to spend on water and cleaning products,” said Pellaton-Emerick.

The school, nevertheless, had to spend R3,500 on cleaning products. A neighbour of the school, at her own cost, connected pipes to the school so that its JoJo tank could be filled from her borehole. Pupils have been asked to bring their own drinking water.

“Our children all have sensory issues, and toilet blockages are very unsafe and unhygienic for them,” said Pellaton-Emerick.

The Key School has been in operation since 1974, providing a much-needed space for children with autism. It’s a happy school; the song Let it Go from the movie Frozen rings out as we enter. But signs of the water outage are ubiquitous. Toilet doors are marked so that each teacher knows which toilet they are responsible for cleaning and flushing, which they do in between classes.

Every child who wants to use the toilet first goes to the JoJo tank to draw a bottle of water to flush the toilet. They wash their hands, then return to the classroom, where they wash their hands again and spray hand sanitiser.

“We can’t use our washing machine to clean towels. We have had to change policy and procedures to keep the young ones safe and healthy. Every classroom has tubs of water; anything bigger poses a risk where children can drown,” said Pellaton-Emerick.

She worries that the water issue will force the school to close its doors. It has already lost pupils. There has been no water tanker in the area since the crisis started, and it is only through the goodwill of neighbours and teachers taking on extra work that the school has been able to continue.

Longtime Parktown West resident Cheryl Stevens said the lack of information about the water crisis was affecting residents. “We are fed up,” she said, “and we want to know how competent the teams in charge are.”

She noted that a neighbour with a newborn baby had to send his wife and baby away because they had no water.

Melville’s beleaguered residents speak up

In Melville, at the community water tank on 1st Avenue, there is a steady stream of residents with empty buckets and 5-litre containers. Goodwill and camaraderie are palpable as older people are helped to carry their filled containers to their cars. As one bottle overflows, a yelp goes up, and there is a rush to close the tap.

Shanaaz Bhayat lives in Melville with her 86-year-old mother. “It’s been hard,” she said. “My mother has dementia and has a panic attack when she can’t flush the toilet.”

Marcel Pols, who runs a guesthouse, has turned many would-be guests away because there is no water. One of his concerns in the high heat of a Joburg summer is for his three ducks. “I am really worried about them; their ponds are all brown and dirty because I can’t put clean water in.”

Richard Dauth, who arrived on his scooter with an empty 5-litre bottle, said, “I think the health issue is the real question here. What is happening in our sewage systems with no water to flush it away? I think this is heading towards a cesspool of disease.

“And we don’t hear about the poor and impoverished, who have to walk miles to get water.”

Janet King, who has lived in Melville for the past 30 years, said, “I am very lucky — I installed a tank last year during the first round of water disasters. The tank helps enormously, but after three days it starts emptying. I pay 50c per litre for a bulk water supplier to come and fill it up. And we should get that money back. The city must be made aware that this situation is totally unacceptable.”

Zsofia Barsanyi, who lives at probably the highest point in Melville, is losing money every month because she can’t “in all consciousness” rent out her garden cottage. She has “MacGyvered” her entire property — from installing JoJo tanks to harvesting rainwater at every downpipe — investing thousands to survive the relentless water outages.

In Emmarentia, the Roshnee Group has stepped in to support the community with water, while in Auckland Park, the local mosque provides the surrounding community with water from its borehole.

Meanwhile, an online protest group in Melville/Westdene drew more than 100 people in less than two hours.

Mayor is silent

The outage has been marked by silence from Mayor Dada Morero and Johannesburg Water. When Johannesburg Water workers embarked on an unprotected action over bonus payments on Monday, not a single water tanker was dispatched to parched residents. The Melville community water tanks ran out at 8pm that night.

Read more: Joburg Water confirms unprotected strike as Day Zero crisis deepens

Councillors for the affected wards have been left in the dark. On Tuesday, a broken pump at the Brixton reservoir, first reported more than a week ago, had still not been fixed. Johannesburg Water told councillors that parts would arrive within a week. And there is still no date for bringing the new Brixton tower and reservoir online.

“This situation does not inspire confidence, especially as the city leadership of Mayor Morero and his mayoral committee has yet to even publicly address the crisis,” said DA councillors Kyle Jacobs, Genevieve Sherman, Hendrik Bodenstein, Zander Shawe and Nicolene Jonker. DM

The writer is a long-time resident of Melville and has no water.

This story was produced by Our City News, a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg.