Pretoria - Residents in the City of Tshwane can brace themselves for massive water outages after the municipality notified them about an emergency leak at Mapleton booster station.
As a result of the leak, there has been a reduction to Mapleton’s pumping to 66%, which is likely to affect water supply to many areas.
City spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said: “The City of Tshwane has been notified by Rand Water about an emergency repair work on the utility’s B8 pipeline leak at the Mapleton booster station.”
He said according to the water utility, the isolation and scouring started on Sunday and the repairs were still under way.
“Both Rand Water’s Vlakfontein and Bronberge reservoirs, which supply water to Tshwane, are in a state of depletion,” he said.
Among the reservoirs affected by the incident were Corobrick Plant, Carina street reservoir, Eersterust reservoir, Elardus Park reservoir, Zwartkoppies o Magalieskruin reservoir and Mamelodi R1 reservoir.
Mashigo said: “Some areas in Tshwane are therefore likely to experience low water pressure to no supply during the repairs. The system may take up to two weeks to recover after commissioning.”
He added that planned maintenance work scheduled for August 25 by Rand Water has been cancelled.
“The said maintenance was meant to carry out switchgear repair work at the Mapleton booster pumping station. The city apologises profusely for the emergency interruptions,” he said.
As part of the maintenance, the utility’s team of technicians was going to repair leaks at the Zuikerbosch water treatment plant as well as replace defective valves at the Palmiet booster station.
Rand Water had initially scheduled the same interruption for July 30, which was subsequently postponed to August 25.
Pretoria News