GEORGE NEWS - Progress is being made with the three major pipe bursts that occurred in George over the past 24 hours.
Residents and visitors to George are requested to CONTINUE USING WATER SPARINGLY for the next three days as the pipe bursts will affect water supply and drinking water storage capacity for the city.
GARDEN ROUTE DAM Raw water pipeline
The Garden Route Dam raw water GRP pipeline (600mm) repair has progressed extremely well today. The testing of the repair is expected to start around 19:00 this evening with one pump from the Garden Route Dam to run from 20:00 and both to be running at full capacity by 08:00 tomorrow morning (30 December).
This pipeline is the main supply of raw water to our balancing dams which in turn provides raw water to the Water Treatment Works for purification.
Once the pipeline is fully operational to the balancing dams, the public is reminded that the loss of stored drinking water in our reservoirs will need to be replaced. This will take a minimum of 3-5 days and the water pressure will remain poor for a few days.
BLANCO Drinking(potable) water pipeline
The Blanco drinking water pipeline (450mm) repair continues and is not expected to be completed until tomorrow. Currently, Blanco is being supplied with water from a smaller 200mm supplementary pipeline; however, not all areas are receiving water and as such the water trucks (drinking water) will remain in place.
WATER TRUCKS will remain in place at positions below until 19:30 tonight.
Millies Superette – 1 truck
Blanco Community Hall – 1 truck
NG Church parking lot – 1 truck
Vrugte Street – 2 trucks
The trucks will again be in place as of 07:00 tomorrow morning (30 December).
MALGAS Raw water pipeline
The repair to the Malgas raw water (500mm) pipeline that pumps raw water from the Malgas River to the balancing dam continues and is expected to be completed by tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.
The Malgas line provides 18Ml of raw water supply and and supplements the main 700mm raw water pipeline.
DRINKING WATER CAPACITY as at 18:00, 29 December
The current daily demand for drinking water remains at 36Ml. With the Garden Route Dam raw water pipeline back online as of tomorrow (30 December), this will allow for the production of 38Ml per day.
However, residents are requested to continue using water sparingly for at least the next THREE DAYS as we remind you that our reservoir storage capacity has been affected by the water outage and no water purification being undertaken. The municipality will continue throttling our reservoir supply with water balancing. Residents throughout the city will note an effect on water pressure which will only be addressed when the entire network has stabilized.
WHERE TO REPORT
If you have NO water, please call in to the George Municipal After Hours Number on 044 801 6300, or the Garden Route Disaster Management Call Centre (24/7) on 044 805 5071. Please provide contact details, street address and time when water supply stopped. PLEASE DO NOT REPORT LOW WATER PRESSURE – this is to be expected under the circumstances.
An update on the situation will be provided tomorrow morning by 08:30.
THANK YOU
George Municipality would like to extend a warm thank you to the Garden Route District Municipality for the provision of water trucks as well as for making the Working on Fire officials available to assist with labour on the Garden Route Dam pipeburst.
"The WOF team has worked extremely hard today and we appreciate them. We would also like to thank Oudtshoorn and Bitou Municipality for providing us with two Water teams to assist our officals, and Mossel Bay Municipality for allowing us to fill our tanker with drinking water at the Great Brak River Fire Station."
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