MINISTER OF WATER AND SANITATION
The initial water outage was reported by residents of Linmeyer in 07 July 2021. The matter related to the Rand Water Palmiet Pump station failure. The failure of the pump station reduced pumping capacity to a number of reservoirs which form part of the Palmiet pumping system. One of these reservoirs was the Rand Water Meyershill Reservoir situated in South Hills Johannesburg. Johannesburg Water has a pump station which is pumping water from the Rand Water Meyershill reservoir into South Hills water tower and supplies the areas of South Hills, Risana, Linmeyer and Tulisa Park and surrounding areas with water.
Due to the Palmiet pump station failure the Meyers Hill reservoir levels dropped to a level of 6%. When the levels of the reservoir dropped below 25%, Johannesburg Water could no longer pump water into the tower without damaging the pumps thus resulting into water supply interruption.
The second water outage reported on 28 August 2021, related to the Rand Water Meyershill Reservoir being almost empty following a power failure at the Zuikerbosh purification works the previous week. This impacted the Palmiet pumping system and the majority of the reservoirs on that system were negatively affected. The system has since recovered.
3. It was established that water supply interruptions in the City of Johannesburg resulted from a power failure or load shedding. It was also established two of Rand Water purification plants namely, Zuikerbosh and Vereeniging; as well as two major pumps stations (Palmiet and Eikenhof) supplying large parts of the City had also been affected by power failure.
Following the investigations, Rand Water implemented a 54-hour shutdown to do maintenance on their raw water pipes at the Vereeniging purification works from the 15 to 17 November 2021. The line was commissioned fully on 17 November 2021, with the works back at full capacity on 18 November 2021. Once the works were in full production; Rand Water increased its pumping capacity at Eikenhof pump station on 19 November 2021.
During this period, Johannesburg Water only received 75% of water supply which resulted in some of the reservoirs running at low levels. The Brixton/Crosby reservoirs took a strain in the process, with Hurst Hill running dry. The City of Johannesburg did not provide interim measures to supply water to affected areas during the outages. However, both Crosby/Brixton and Hurst Hill reservoirs recovered, and normal supply was restored to affected areas by 19 November 2021.