File picture
THE city has been forewarned to make provisions for another water shutdown from April 21-23.
Spokesperson for Sol Plaatje Municipality, Thoko Riet, said the Riverton and Newton reservoirs would be filled prior to the shutdown.
“This will provide the city with a limited supply of water during the shutdown. Roving water tanks and Jojo tanks will be made available, if the need arises.”
She added that the shutdown would commence from 6am on April 21 until 6pm on April 23.
“This will provide the municipality with enough time to fully drain the affected pipe sections to undertake the repairs and restore the water supply to all communities. This will mark the beginning of a huge improvement to the supply and quality of the water in the future.”
Riet explained that the shutdown was necessary to detect leaks along the pipeline through the smartball leak detection system.
“The smartball leak detection system that was carried out in November last year was not concluded due to dysfunctional isolation valves. A shutdown is required to replace these isolation valves as preparatory work to facilitate the smartball investigation planned in May this year.
“At the same time bulk water meter insertion probes will also be installed on the 600 millimetre and 900 millimetre bulk pipelines to enable water loss measurements on the bulk water supply.”
She added that the operation was funded through the budget funding infrastructure programme where funding was received from National Treasury and the Department of Water and Sanitation in January to address urgent bulk infrastructure upgrades and repairs.
“The refurbishment of the bulk pipeline will be implemented over a seven-year period . . . actively commencing in July.”
Riet stated that regular updates would be provided throughout the water shutdown.