On Friday, 22 August the Makana Municipality notified Rhodes University through the Infrastructure & Operations Division that the Howison’s Poort pumps were experiencing an electrical supply problem which could negatively impact the levels of water in the reservoirs. The information was shared with student and staff on the same day.
On Saturday, 23 August, the University was informed that the electrical problem had been resolved, but a further problem had developed. The arterial feeder pipeline between the Howison’s Poort pump station and the Waainek water treatment plant had burst on Saturday morning.
Rhodes was informed that specialists were appointed to repair the pipe, and it was anticipated that water supply would be restored by Saturday evening.
The pipe was repaired by early Sunday morning, and water started flowing through the Waainek water treatment plant into the reservoirs.
Unfortunately the repaired pipe ruptured again late on Sunday morning.
The pipe repair specialists were recalled and are working to repair the pipe using a different methodology (welding flanges onto the ruptured ends of the pipe to allow the pipe to be bolted together). It is anticipated that this second attempt to repair the pipe will be completed by late Monday afternoon.
If the repair is successful, water flows into the reservoirs will commence.
It is anticipated that it will take two days before the water supply is fully restored; and water supply will be restored progressively from the low areas of town to the high-lying areas as the pressure increases.
The water outage has affected the entire campus and the University’s water outage protocol listed below has been operational since Saturday morning.
Rhodes University water outage protocol
1. Bottled drinking water (2l per day) is provided to students in
affected residences
2. Water is provided for the flushing of toilets
3. Additional staff are provided to ensure the ablution areas are kept
hygienically clean
4. Toilet seat sanitizer is provided
5. Hygiene wet-wipes or waterless hand sanitizer is provided.
6. Water tanks outside the affected residences are filled on a rotation
basis using water tankers
7. Residences without water are “twinned” with residences which do have
water for the purposes of ablutions and laundry
8. An Emergency Water Action Team (EWAT) convenes during outages to
manage the outage situation on campus