Eskom load-shedding wreaks havoc on water system

Every day, for the past 10 days, Tracey Whyte has lugged four 20-litre drums of water from her Germiston home to her pre-school in Melville, Johannesburg.

She owns the Melville Education Center in the suburb, where residents have endured weeks of water outages, caused by load-shedding and high water demand, which have depleted Johannesburg Water ’s reservoirs and towers. 

The water cuts have been a nightmare for Whyte, whose creche cares for 56 children, including four-month-old babies. “That’s a lot of toilets to flush. We’ve got to cook, wash dishes.

“If the dams were empty, I would accept that, but they’re full. They keep telling us to use as little water as possible but there isn’t any water to use.”

On Tuesday, Joburg Water spokesperson Puleng Mopeli said the recovery of the critically low Commando system – the towers and reservoirs that feed Melville, Hursthill, Brixton and Crosby – had been “derailed” because of Eskom’s reinstatement of load-shedding and high demand in Rand Water’s supply areas.

“Johannesburg Water has since closed the Brixton reservoir to build capacity and pump into the Brixton towers.” 

The Honeydew system remains critically low to empty while the Helderkruin reservoir is critically low. Outlet valves are being isolated in some reservoirs by between 50% and 70% to “balance the current high demand with the reduced supply”.