Pretoria - The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has urged communities in Emalahleni to use water sparingly over the next two weeks as a planned water outage gets underway.
The outage comes as Eskom constructs a railway line from Ermelo to Majuba Power Station. The railway line crosses the department’s pipeline between Rietspruit reservoir and Davel.
This means that from 23 February to 9 March, the communities of Kriel in Emalahleni Local Municipality will be affected, as they get bulk raw water supply from this pipeline.
The local municipality will communicate the various areas where communities will get water from water tankers.
“The department and all stakeholders request patience and co-operation from all who will be affected during this planned outage period. DWS and Eskom believe that the outage period will not be exceeded.
“All those who will be affected are implored to consider everyone in the supply system, to make storage preparations if possible and use available water sparingly and optimally.
“The department apologises for the inconvenience caused. The importance of this planned outage is, however, important for maintenance and sustainability of the infrastructure for now and into the future,” said the department.
Eskom requested the outage to tie in with the permanent deviation of the pipeline to the existing structure, as per the DWS approved design. The deviation of the structure has been approved by the DWS engineers and the engineers will be involved with the quality control during the construction phase. This also provides an opportunity for DWS to do maintenance work on the pipeline. – SAnews.gov.za
