Joburg residents went into panic mode after Rand Water announced several weeks of maintenance followed by a six-month shutdown notice from the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme (LHWS), which will result in water outages in Gauteng and the Free State.
While some retailers are making use of the opportunity to market water-supply solutions and strategies, experts are warning against opportunism and scaremongering.
“Water authorities must do maintenance. It’s very important because it reduces breakages and leaks in the system. It’s much better to go a few planned days without water than to end up with constant problems,” said water resources scientist Carin Bosman, who specialises in environmental, water and waste management and governance.
Rand Water has announced extensive proactive maintenance to be carried out from June 22 to July 29 to “preserve the quality and integrity of the infrastructure, reduce maintenance costs in the long term, and increase the lifespan of the infrastructure and assets”.
“We have engaged with our municipal customers, continue to engage, and have officially notified them about the upcoming maintenance project to ensure they have a 21-day period to plan, put appropriate contingency measures in place, manage storage capacity prior [to] and during the maintenance period, and inform their customers accordingly,” Rand Water said.
Nicole Atcheson, environmental sustainability manager responsible for water conservation at retailer Massmart, advised consumers to conserve as much water as possible, citing the early detection of leaks as among the most critical steps.
The shutdown is planned to start on October 1, which coincides with the start of the rainy season. So this won’t have an impact on the supply [of water], because that is the time the Vaal is normally overflowing and we don’t even take any water from Lesotho
— Carin Bosman, water scientist
This, she said, was a key finding of research done off the back of Massmart’s water-saving initiative, which saved about 15-million litres of water from their stores in 2023.
In anticipation of the planned six-month water outages for Gauteng and Free State residents starting in October, Builders Warehouse is encouraging consumers to consider the longer-term benefits of setting up water-saving solutions in their homes.
Mauritz Swart, buyer for water products at Builders, said: “What we typically see is people waiting for the situation to become quite dire before considering solutions. This was especially true during the bad periods of load-shedding. We have already seen water outages in some provinces, and consumers should start planning for outages sooner rather than later. There is also the opportunity to map out what products can be purchased first over a longer period, and therefore budgeted [for] accordingly.”
Swart suggested a rainwater harvesting system to conserve water and secure a backup supply. This is typically done with a gutter system that collects rainwater from a roof and channels it into storage tanks. When access to municipal water is cut off, the stored water can be used to water gardens and for toilet flushing and cleaning.
Tips to reduce water consumption and keep water bills low included finding and fixing leaks, reducing water pressure by turning the stopcock lower or installing a flow restrictor on the main pipe connection from the water meter, fitting flow restrictors or aerators on taps and shower heads to control the flow, and opting for energy-efficient water-heating solutions such as heat pumps or point-of-use water heaters. This means heating only water that is used instead of a full geyser.
But Bosman believes big and expensive strategies are not necessary, and she urged consumers not to panic-buy.
“If you know there is going to be an outage, you can fill a bath and that will be enough water to flush toilets and keep a household going for two or more days,” she said, adding that people needed to check with their municipalities before installing rainwater harvesting systems, as these were banned in some areas because rooftop water was needed back in the system for sewage flow.
Environmental justice activist and water expert Ferrial Adam said that while there was no debate that maintenance was needed, Joburg Water and Rand Water needed to provide water to residents during maintenance periods. They also needed to involve civil society in the maintenance planning.
“The lack of trust by many residents means people don’t know how to deal with the information or who to believe. Companies promoting storage tanks and systems feed on peoples’ insecurities and, because many people can’t afford them, it becomes an exclusivity issue,” she said.
Even the six-month shutdown of the LHWS, which feeds into the Vaal water system, should be seen as a positive occurrence that will result in benefits rather than water shortages, Bosman said.
“The shutdown is planned to start on October 1, which coincides with the start of the rainy season. So this won’t have an impact on the supply [of water], because that is the time the Vaal is normally overflowing and we don’t even take any water from Lesotho,” she pointed out.
She said the shutdown was also necessary for the final in-river work to be done on a new hydroelectric power project that will see the establishment of a run-off-river power plant located on the Ash River within the LHWS. It will feed hydroelectricity into the national grid. And while construction has started, work in the river can only be done once the agreement to shut down the LHWS, agreed to by both South Africa and Lesotho, happens.
The shutdown, she explained, was part of a standard protocol that saw standard maintenance breaks happening frequently: an hour every month, a full day every year, for five days every five years, and for six months every 20 years.
