A faulty valve and a burst water pipeline in Prospecton left businesses and residents fuming in Isipingo and Amanzimtoti on Wednesday.
The underground pipeline was damaged on Friday according to eThekwini councillor Shad Nowbuth. Repairs were undertaken and the supply of water returned to some areas on Tuesday night.
According to eThekwini Municipality Executive Committee (Exco) councillor Andre Beetge a meeting was facilitated on Wednesday, between Ethekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS) and the Amanzimtoti retail, residential and business sector with specific emphasis on the Amanzimtoti/ Athlone park water supply off Prospecton.
Beetge said three major retailers and a representative of nearly 200 households were present at the meeting. Beetge said the area, which includes retail precincts and an old age home, did not have a piped water supply for 121 hours. A hospital in the area went 80 hours without water.
Beetge said plumbers had to manually expose the pipe due to the proximity of the leak close to a gas pipeline.
“The department eventually determined that there was a leak on an illegally installed supply off the line into a section of the industrial area,” Beetge said.
He said a faulty valve on a 400 mm pipe, used to divert the water in case of a problem on the mainline, also added to the problem.
“There was a lack of communication between the central and south areas in the water department. It took 15 hours for a plumber to come out to the site and detect the leak. One of the retail businesses had paid nearly R800,000 for water to be tankered to its premises. This will have a knock on effect to the retailers and their customers. This is pure exploitation by the company involved,” Beetge said.
Isipingo Business Forum chairperson Junaid Iqbal said for the past two weeks the water supply was erratic with continuous leaks on the pipelines, severely impacting the operations of nearly 80 manufacturing businesses in the Isipingo and Prospecton area.
“Many entrepreneurs have suffered significant losses in revenue due to forced closures or reduced operations. It has been an ongoing issue for two weeks. They fix one pipe and another bursts. This is a business hub of note. Factories rely on a continuous supply of water and water tankers are only for residential areas,” Iqbal said.
The outage also affected the Isipingo Hospital and Isipingo police station, said Nowbuth.
“A water tanker alleviated the problem at the police station. They needed water for prisoners detained in the cells and staff to keep operations ongoing. I empathise with the community for the delay in restoring the water supply. The Isipingo reservoir had to fill up. Many tests had to be conducted to the pipeline before it could be opened. I am aware that some businesses had storage tanks but these were also depleted,” Nowbuth said.
On Tuesday, eThekwini Mayor Cyril Xaba said management of the EWS was on the ground in Isipingo expediting the repair work. In the past four months the municipality has been plagued by water related issues that has left communities without a water supply to their taps for several days.
Xaba said the EWS turnaround strategy business plan is expected to be tabled before an Exco meeting on Tuesday. The plan will address, among other issues, curbing water losses by detecting and repairing water leaks and replacing ageing infrastructure. The municipality conceded that it is losing billions of rands in revenue from water losses, including burst pipes and an unmetered water supply.
On Thursday, the municipality announced that water at the Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital in uMlazi was fully restored. For almost a week the hospital did not have a piped water supply and was reliant on water tankers and storage tanks.
