Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has shifted its focus and resources to accelerating the fixing of water leaks to secure water reserves following good rains that have increased combined dam levels to 72 percent.
On 5 October 2023 the Kouga, Churchill, Lourie and Groendal dams were sitting at 100 percent while the biggest dam that supports Nelson Mandela Bay’s western areas, Impofu is at 26.21 percent.
On 5 October last year the Kouga Dam was sitting at 22.52, Chucrchill at 34.19, Loerie at 71.48 with Groendal at 19.11 while Impofu was at a mere 9.93 percent with all this making a combined level of just 19.64 percent.
The metro has welcomed the dam levels increase with caution understanding that more challenges remain, at the centre of them being water leaks.
In between the daily water leaks response that are reported through the 0800 205050 number, the metro has embarked on a weekly aggressive water leaks programme that targets a certain area that has a high number of reported and unreported leaks.
Last week the metro completed 482 leaks with 3564 remaining. Today the teams focused on Ward 51 in Kariega, an area that has been having long outstanding water leaks.
Among the leaks we fixed fire hydrants, burst pipes and pressure reducing valves which blocked as a result of water outages in KwaLanga and Rosedale few days ago.
Mayoral Committee Member for Infrastructure and Engineering Khanya Ngqisha said water leaks have now turned to be the major focus of the department.
“We want to drastically reduce water wastage. We understand the devastation of not having water as we have just came out of a seven year drought. We need to save every drop we can to secure water for the future. I further call on all residents and businesses continue to using water sparingly,” said MMC Ngqisha.
“The metro needs to deal with leaks to reduce water that goes to waste and secure the metros water sustainability going forward. We will be intensifying on this work across the metro. We have our own officials complemented by 10 plumbing contractors to accelerate the work that we do and improve the response turnaround,” said Director for Water Distribution Joseph Tsatsire.
He said his office has given a clear message to the officials on the ground that the current number of leaks fixed per week needs to increase.
“We do understand that the number of leaks that we have which is over three thousand cannot be justified for us a a drought stricken area. We continue to monitor and evaluate and implement improvements,” said Tsatsire.
NMB Communications
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