Most of Makhanda has been without water since Sunday.
It is one of several prolonged water outages that the roughly 70,000 residents have suffered over the festive season – including Christmas day – as a result of aging infrastructure and years of maintenance neglect.
To make matters worse, Settlers and Howieson’s Poort dams – which supply the western half of Makhanda – are almost empty.
Residents have been warned that unless it rains or residents dramatically cut back on usage, supply may run out as soon as mid-February. No significant rainfall is forecast before then.
Much of the water is also lost to leaks between the holding reservoirs and the city.
The Grahamstown Residents’ Association (GRA) has warned on its website that water rationing may soon have to be enforced.
In theory, the eastern part of Makhanda has a plentiful supply of raw water from the Orange River Scheme. But, in reality, the Makana Municipality only has the capacity to purify one fraction of the water needed daily by residents in Makhanda east, leading to the municipality rationing water at night.
This capacity was recently halved when one of the pumps at the James Kleynhans (JK) pumping station failed.
The GRA says the municipality informed it that the second pump would come back online on January 21, with a third to be installed as backup.
It said the connection from east to west had also been upgraded so it could, in theory at least, supply both sides of the city. But, this was again limited by its capacity to purify and pump the water.
“Funding has been approved to double the capacity of JK but has not yet been formally budgeted [for] so the estimated completion [of that project is only] 2021.” This was of no use to the city in the short-term.
In the meantime, Rhodes University has denied rumours circulating social media that it might reconsider opening in early February as a result of the water crisis.
In a brief response to several questions sent to them on Monday, Rhodes spokesperson Veliswa Mhlope said the university’s finance and infrastructure director Dr Iain L’Ange rejected that the university’s doors would remain closed in the face of the looming water disaster faced by the city.
“There are various consultations taking place with the municipality and the various stakeholders and a more detailed statement will be issued as soon as more information becomes available,” she said.
The latest water outage was caused by a massive burst pipe at one of the highest points above the city.
Once it had repaired the main leak, the municipality indicated via message boards and social media that it had discovered a secondary leak below the main pipe. They worked all through Monday night to repair it.
Water once again flowed into people’s taps mid-morning, but with reduced pressure.
The municipality indicated the system needed to refill for water to reach higher lying areas...