BCM warns residents of citywide water cuts

BCM mayor Xola Pakati has warned residents that water cuts will be implemented from 10pm to 4am indefinitely as the city battles to clean its water supply.

In a statement released on Thursday, Pakati said the “water shedding” would start from Friday night “to build up the storage for the high-lying areas”.

He called for an urgent meeting with his executive on Thursday morning as temperatures and residents’ tempers soar across the metro.

The Dispatch reported recently on a number of water-related issues and frustrated residents whose taps were either completely dry or experiencing irregular supply.

Pakati attributed BCM’s water supply woes to the after-effects and damage of the January 8 storms and flooding.

“The floods also negatively affected our water infrastructure, and the quality of the water that residents of certain areas  of our metro complained about is one of the indicators of the magnitude of the floods.”

“The raw water from Bridle Drift Dam to Umzonyana Water Treatment Works was negatively affected by the flash floods which negatively affected the extent the plant is able to treat and release water into the distribution system.

“Because the system is taking longer to fully recover due to the high water demand, the city has had to consider the situation holistically.

“We are implementing a number of mitigation plans to recover the Umzonyana Water Supply System and among these are:

• We are providing water tankers to assist the affected areas;
• We have brought on board an external expert to advise on solutions to stabilise the system; and
• We will cut water supply between 22h00 and 04h00 every evening to build up the storage for the high-lying areas and this will be implemented until this system sufficiently recovers. This will not affect all areas of the metro.

We apologise to all residents of our metro for this situation.

“As the political leadership of the institution, we will be monitoring the water challenge daily and we will give regular updates to the residents of the affected areas until the water distribution system is to the requisite standard.” — DDR

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