The Municipality is a Water Services Authority and Water Services Provider responsible for water services within the Municipal Jurisdictional area.
This in the main includes ensuring that there is adequate bulk potable water supply to all areas and that there is enough water retention in the system to sustain supply should there be an unforeseen event.
The main source of potable water supply in the municipality is the Witbank Water Treatment Plant situated in Woltemade Street Witbank is supplied with raw water from the Witbank Dam by means of bulk water supply lines.
In recent past days the municipality has been inundated with poor water quality experienced at the consumer points.
An investigation has been conducted and was found that the main cause of water discoloration was the high manganese content in the raw water fed to the plant for treatment.
Further that the chemical dosing system requires urgent modification to feed adequate chemicals into the water treatment system.The preparations were done yesterday (04 January 2021) with the intention that the plant will be off line for short period of time to allow for installation of modified equipment.
The water plant was taken off line at about 08:00am today 05 January 2021 and expected to be back on line by 13:00pm today. During this period there will be water production deficit as we will depend only on the other water supply schemes of Nu Water and the Anglo mine.
There will be areas affected with no water and or Low water pressure especially distant and high lying areas until the water plant is back in full operation. Water will be supplied by means of water tankers for the period in question with emphasis to places of learning, old age homes, health institutions and where people gather in numbers as per regulations.
It should be borne in mind that as the water system will be empty, the recovery period is expected to be between twelve and twenty four hours. The additional water supply schemes of the modular package plant will be operated at maximum capacity to maintain minimum water levels in the water supply system.
It is therefore important that the communities and consumers use water sparingly and safely as the entire country is faced with even more dangerous second phase of COVID 19 pandemic.
Issued by
Communication Unit
Emalahleni Local Municipality
