Pretoria - There is no end in sight for the plight of people in the greater Hammanskraal area who have been struggling to have access to clean and drinkable water for years.
Many residents were surprised on Monday morning when they opened their taps only to find greenish and brownish water.
Like her fellow residents, Johannah Rakau of Kudube Unit 11, said the promise by the City of Tshwane that it was at work to repair the ageing water infrastructure was starting to sound like a pipe-dream. Rakau said the last time the community had access to clean water was three years ago.
“Even then it was not like the water was good for drinking because it used to be smelly and we were only using it for washing or bathing,” she said.
Yesterday, Rakau joined a in a queue of residents at Tambo sports ground, from where they fetched water distributed by water tankers organised by the municipality.
“I wanted to do my laundry today, but I couldn’t because our taps have run dry,” she said.
The City decided to shut down Temba water treatment plant – the source of water distribution in the area – after residents continuously complained about brownish water since Monday.
Another resident, Patrick Mphego, was happy that there were at least water tankers yesterday.
Mphego said he struggled to have water for consumption since Monday and was forced to buy from the local shopping centre. “I think only for this week I had spend R75 to buy water for my family,” he said.
Ward 8 councillor Andries Dinale, who assisted with the co-ordination of water supply, said every morning the schools and clinics were prioritised for water.
Dinale said community leaders agreed to use the sports ground as a central point from where water tankers were dispatched to transport water.
“We dispatch trucks from the sport ground to different areas where there are more challenges of water. Mostly, we received calls from the schools where there is water challenge. Our priority for water distribution has been the schools and clinics,” he said.
According to him, the City was still in the process of determining the cause of the brownish water, adding there was still “no proper response as why water was brownish”.
City of Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the municipality had been experiencing equipment failure and maintenance related-challenges at the Temba plant over the last week.
“The challenges have affected the plant negatively, resulting in the quality of water produced at the plant deteriorating gradually. As of August 25, 2021, the quality of water produced at the Temba Water Treatment Plant has severely deteriorated leaving the City with no choice but to temporarily shut down the plant,” Mashigo said.
He attributed the deteriorated water quality to equipment failure at the Granular Activated Carbon Filtration and the Ozone Plant.
“It must be indicated that the current equipment failures experienced at the Temba plant are not as a result of the work currently taking place at the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant,” he said.
The City, he said, was currently busy with repairs of the affected equipment. However, this is taking longer than anticipated due to the lead time in sourcing some of the spares and materials from suppliers.
It was anticipated that the repairs would be completed and the plant brought back to operation by today.
Mashigo said the City has increased deployment of roaming water tankers from 50 to 70 tankers until the plant was back in operation.
Among the affected areas were Mashemong, Majaneng, Mandela Village, Hammanskraal, Hammanskraal West (Kekana), Kudube Unit 4 (Hammanskraal Shopping Centre), Skampaneng,Temba View, Suurman and Dilopye.
The EFF in Tshwane yesterday expressed concerns regarding the long-standing water problem in Hammanskraal.
“The tragedy of Hammanskraal dirty water is a lifetime experience that has lasted for many decades.”
The party said the dilemma of dirty water in the area “can be resolved with speed, especially when the DA administration considered the black people of Hammanskraal as equally important as their rich constituency in the affluent suburbs of eastern Pretoria”.
Last month, ActionSA released adverse findings against the quality of water provided to Hammanskraal by municipality, attributing the problem largely to the ageing infrastructure at the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant.
The plant lacked the capacity to purify waste water, resulting in the sludge being discharged into the Apies River.
The Apies River in turn supplied water to Temba water treatment plant, used for purifying water for the Hammanskraal residents.
Pretoria News