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Joburg Water is implementing an urgent short to medium term plan that will see old Asbestos Cement piping infrastructure in the Central and North of Johannesburg entirely replaced.

“A large section of piped infrastructure in places like Craigavon, Bloubosrand, Maroeladal, Chartwell and surrounds is Asbestos Cement (AC),” MMC for the Environment and Infrastructure Services Department (EISD) Cllr. Michael Sun said.  

“This decades old infrastructure is simply not designed to withstand the rapid opening and closing of the water system that occurs during upgrades and routine maintenance.”

Last week residents in Fourways and surrounds experienced severe water interruptions as Joburg Water attended to several planned and emergency outages. 

A planned outage due to scheduled piping upgrades in Craigavon caused incessant outages in the immediate vicinity for several days due to AC pipe bursts. AC piping is particularly susceptible to bursts in winter due to its rigidity. 

“We understand outage to any service is a major inconvenience and even minor water stoppages are a true disaster this is why we as part of the new financial year projects, will be replacing these Asbestos pipes with either UPVC or steel pipes which will bring a permanent solution to the problem” MMC for EISD Cllr. Michael Sun said.  

“But this is situation is not going to improve unless Joburg Water is given the space to upgrade these sections of the network.”

Last week Joburg Water technical teams completed an assessment of problematic sections of the network with AC piping and will be initiating an urgent project to replace these sections with UPVC or steel piping in the current 2022/23 financial year. Work has already commenced and is being closely monitored by EISD. 

“This replacement project is going to be rolled out urgently in the north of Johannesburg as well other flash points like Randburg,” MMC for EISD Cllr. Michael Sun said.  

“The Joburg Water teams will do their best to ensure this is a seamless exercise. Johannesburg residents must please be patient as this is going to be short term pain for long term gain as we upgrade the water system.”

Issued by City of Joburg MMC for the Environment and Infrastructure Services Department Cllr. Michael Sun