Johannesburg Water to enforce overnight 'throttling'

Starting on Thursday, water throttling will be implemented daily from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. to allow reservoir levels to recover overnight.

 The initiative is part of efforts by the Department of Water and Sanitation, City of Johannesburg, and Gauteng Province to stabilise water supply amid rising demand and infrastructure challenges.

Johannesburg has been facing a severe water crisis due to population growth, illegal connections, and damaged infrastructure.

Majodina addressed the media on these interventions on Monday, alongside Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi and officials from the City of Johannesburg and Johannesburg Water.

She highlighted the need to stabilise supply amid ongoing challenges.

Johannesburg Water presented the measure which is implementable which includes, amongst others – throttling of water supply between 9 p.m and 4 a.m.

"This is in line with our restriction on level one to enable the reservoirs to recover overnight. If they don’t do that the reservoirs will not be able to fill up. So, we’re doing that overnight," the minister said. 

"The city intends to implement this continuously from the 14th of November until the system is fully recovered.

"Additional measures  include contracting emergency repair teams for large leaks, expanding repair crews to reduce response times from 48 to 24 hours, and increasing the number of water trucks and standby teams for leak and burst pipe repairs."

Majodina also warned that illegal connections in key informal settlements will be cut off to conserve supply.

She said that the water shortages in Gauteng are largely due to inadequate maintenance of municipal water systems.

"The main underlying cause of the water supply disruptions in Johannesburg is therefore that the peak demand for water is close to, and occasionally exceeds, the available supply from Rand Water.

"The demand-supply relationship for treated water in Johannesburg is very tight and the system is vulnerable to disturbances caused by electro-mechanical breakdowns or spikes in demand caused by heatwaves.

"In addition to the completion of the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Project, the meeting agreed that the City of Johannesburg must reduce the leaks in its water distribution system and complete its current projects to construct more reservoirs and pumping stations to make its water distribution system more resilient to electro-mechanical breakdowns or spikes in demand," added Majodina.

To address these vulnerabilities, Majodina cited ongoing projects like phase two of the Lesotho Highlands Project and the construction of additional reservoirs and pumping stations to strengthen the city’s infrastructure.

A province-wide public awareness campaign is also underway.

"The meeting noted that an independent body called the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng has been established to manage this campaign and that, as a first step, a dashboard has been created on the DWS website to provide the public with detailed information on the status of water supply in Gauteng.

"The political leadership in the three spheres of government are confident that these measures will be implemented with the necessary urgency. It was agreed that similar meetings will be held every Sunday to monitor progress," she added.

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