GEORGE NEWS - In his address to George Council last Thursday 25 March, Mayor Leon van Wyk said their biggest challenge for ongoing maintenance and upgrading of municipal infrastructure, in particular in relation to water and waste water, is an additional budget.
Van Wyk said these networks have evolved over decades and many of them are starting to age.
In the last two weeks two massive double pipe bursts in Heriot Drive left a large portion of the Eastern extension without water for the duration of the repairs, and trouble at pump stations, such as the Eden pump station, have recently been noted.
"Maintenance is constantly done and needs to be increased, but unfortunately funding remains limited as we strive to keep water and sewerage tariffs affordable," said Van Wyk.
"For every 1% that we increase water and sewerage tariffs, we only add R2,5-million for this purpose. Over the next few years, we are however going to need to add 5 to 6% to the normal annual increases to make more headway in the refurbishment of infrastructure networks.
"The budget is undergoing structural changes that will address maintenance and refurbishment to an increasing extent as from the 2021/22 financial year."
Van Wyk said George operates a main water infrastructure reticulation network of 990km of pipeline and a sewer reticulation system that extends for 870km.
"We have a tarred road network of 428km (and a further 107km of gravel road). To place the size of our network into context, we can imagine the road to Cape Town with water and sewer lines on both sides of the road and a further extension to Plettenberg Bay to cater for the gravel roads and remainder of the water line.
"The George sewer system has 116 pump stations in the network to cater for the topography and 25 water pump stations. This should provide a picture of the tasks required to maintain such networks."
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