The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s effort to work around the clock to restore water supply, to the areas that are normally fed from the Churchill pipeline system that supplies a third of the city, paid dividends on Thursday afternoon, leaving Municipal staff to concentrate on restoring supply to remaining isolated streets in Schauderville.
All other areas in Nelson Mandela Bay are restored after two pipelines washed away during the early hours of August 2 leaving the municipality unable to pump water from the Churchill and Impofu dams. As a result 8 of its 54 reservoirs ran dry but quick work on the 700mm diameter steel pipe paid off and the municipality started pumping water through to the city on August 5 as the pipe was fixed in record time before 6am that morning.
Since then the gradual restoration of supply took place to all areas. By this afternoon Parkside, Gelvandale and Schauderville were the only affected areas still without water. While Women’s Day was commemorated throughout the country, paying tribute to approximately 20 000 women, led by the ANC Women’s League, who marched to Pretoria to protest against carrying a dompas on 9 August 1954, officials from Nelson Mandela Bay diligently carried out repairs to the water distribution system.
Mr Barry Martin, Director of Water and Sanitation, said his department can now concentrate on dealing with the isolated streets in Schauderville whilst work on the 1000mm diameter pipe is progressing well.
“We are requesting consumers to continue to use water sparingly as we are confident that repairs to the larger pipe will also be finished way ahead of schedule.
“However, as all the reservoirs are still low, we can still not afford a greater demand for water at this stage as we are still using only one pipe to pump water from the Churchill and Impofu dams,” he added.
The rest of the city received water from the Kouga/Loerie pipeline and the Nooitgedagt system (Gariep dam) throughout the period that supply to the other parts of Nelson Mandela Bay were affected.
Residents are welcome to call the 24 hour call centre at 0800 20 50 50 to report water related matters.
