Question NW1620 to the Minister of Water and Sanitation
26 May 2023 - NW1620
Mohlala, Ms MR to ask the Minister of Water and Sanitation
What steps of intervention has he taken to mitigate the potential risks to water treatment plants and water treatment centres from load shedding to ensure that the essential facilities continue to operate efficiently and effectively during power outages?
Reply:
a) The DWS is participating in nationwide discussions to find sector wide solutions to the impact of loadshedding on delivery of water and sanitation services. This challenge requires collaboration with municipalities, water boards and ESKOM, among other institutions. DWS proposed recommendations for consideration are as follows.
- Water Boards and municipalities should maximize water treatment while electricity is available.
- Water Boards and municipalities should revise the minimum operational levels for their reservoirs to increase storage capacity.
- Water Boards and municipalities should endeavour to increase their water treatment and reservoir storage capacity to enable them to better manage periods of load shedding. Households should be encouraged to install their own storage capacity, such as rainwater catchment tanks.
- All municipalities and Water Boards should either apply to Eskom for exemptions from load shedding (where they obtain electricity directly from Eskom) or work with their municipal electricity departments to isolate their water and sanitation infrastructure. In some cases, where water and sanitation infrastructure cannot be isolated from local electricity grids, it may not be possible. In some instances, making this effective might require additional switching and cabling to limit the size of affected electrical supply zones. Where Eskom directly supplies a strategic installation (such as a major Water Board pump station) it may be necessary for Eskom to limit the electricity supply zone area so as not to impede their load shedding options.
- Municipalities which are water service authorities should develop integrated response plans to keep water flowing during load shedding. These response plans should be integrated across the water and sanitation, electricity, and other divisions of the municipality.
- Eskom should quickly review its processes for dealing with requests for exemptions from load shedding for water and sanitation infrastructure, with a view to making them more simple and quicker.
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