Pretoria and Johannesburg Brace for Water Outages

In early October, Johannesburg Water reported that reservoirs across South Africa’s largest city are at critically low levels because of a scorching heatwave.

South Africa’s administrative capital Pretoria and largest city Johannesburg are facing water outages amid efforts by the country’s biggest water utility firm to stabilize reservoir levels.

Rand Water spokesperson Makenosi Maroo said in a statement that the company would apply a flow-control scheme at its reservoirs from Friday evening to avoid them running empty, generating a “complete systems crash”.

She explained that the move would ensure that Rand Water “takes full control of water supply and no longer relies on consumers to reduce consumption”.

Maroo said that despite the restrictions, water consumption had been on the rise and reservoir levels continue to dwindle due.

The spokeswoman informed that an “intermittent water supply” is expected in an area that includes Pretoria, Johannesburg and the adjacent industrial hub of Ekurhuleni, which is home to South Africa’s largest airport.

“We recommend that municipalities impose water restrictions through their by-laws and effectively police their implementation. We further recommend a ban on [the] use of sprinkler systems for watering lawns, use of hosepipes to wash cars and clean pavements as some of the measures to save the situation,” Maroo pointed out.

The statement came after Johannesburg Water tweeted earlier this month that reservoirs which feed the city are either too shallow for water to be pumped to towers, or at critically low levels due to extremely hot weather. According to the company, supplies from Rand Water had been reduced due to electricity blackouts.

The firm added that “Johannesburg Water requests customers reduce consumption, only using water for human and household needs, which will significantly assist” in the restoration of the affected systems.