Joburg – Water utility Joburg Water will be implementing an urgent short- to medium-term plan that will see old asbestos cement piping infrastructure in the central and north of Joburg entirely replaced.
“A large section of piped infrastructure in places like Craigavon, Bloubosrand, Maroeladal, Chartwell and surrounds is asbestos cement (AC),” said MMC for the environment and infrastructure services department (EISD) Michael Sun.
“This decades-old infrastructure is simply not designed to withstand the rapid opening and closing of the water system that occurs during upgrades and routine maintenance.”
Last week, residents in Fourways and surrounds experienced severe water interruptions as Joburg Water attended to several planned and emergency outages.
The EISD said a planned outage due to scheduled piping upgrades in Craigavon caused constant outages in the immediate vicinity for several days due to AC pipe bursts.
AC piping is particularly susceptible to bursts in winter due to its rigidity, according to the department.
“We understand that an outage to any service is a major inconvenience and even minor water stoppages are a true disaster.
“This is why we, as part of the new financial year projects, will be replacing these asbestos pipes with either UPVC or steel pipes which will bring a permanent solution to the problem” Sun said.
“But this situation is not going to improve unless Joburg Water is given the space to upgrade these sections of the network.”
The EISD said that last week, Joburg Water technical teams completed an assessment of problematic sections of the network with AC piping and will be initiating an urgent project to replace these sections with UPVC or steel piping in the current 2022/23 financial year.
“This replacement project is going to be rolled out urgently in the north of Joburg as well as other flash points like Randburg,” the MMC said.
“The Joburg Water teams will do their best to ensure this is a seamless exercise.
“Joburg residents must please be patient as this is going to be short term pain for long-term gain as we upgrade the water system.”
The Star