Pretoria metro to ‘throttle’ reservoirs
All reservoir outflow valves will be throttled during night time and will be opened again the next day when reservoirs have recovered to acceptable levels.
The Tshwane metro will now start throttling all its reservoirs at night.
This comes after calls for Pretoria residents to save water reportedly fell on “deaf ears” as reservoir levels “plummeted substantially over the past few days”.
Rand Water has restricted water supply to the western suburbs of Pretoria to as low as 30 percent, according to the Tshwane metro.
“As a result of consumers’ failure to heed calls to use water sparingly, our reservoir levels are currently sitting at an average of 35 percent,” said Tshwane utility services MMC Abel Tau.
“We appeal to residents to change their behavioural patterns when it comes to using water.”
Tau said Rand Water was experiencing low water levels as a result of two purification plants which failed due to power failure caused by veld fires.
“The situation was further exacerbated by the malfunctioning of a valve at one of the utility’s pumping mains from Zuikerbosch purification station,” he said.
“This resulted in an 18-hour emergency shut-down in mid-October.”
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