After years of enduring mostly dry taps in their homes, residents in Nicholas Road, Schauderville, are furious with the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality for failing to fully restore their water supply.
The street is in a high-lying area.
While the rest of the Schauderville area has running water, Nicholas Road residents depend on a borehole from Paterson High School, using four communal taps installed along the street.
However, the taps have since been stolen.
Uviwe Child and Youth Services, a registered child protection centre, is located in the street.
Speaking on behalf of the centre, Shaldon Jacobs said all efforts to get the water supply restored yielded no results.
“The frustration has built up, and you have a ward councillor [allegedly] telling you that we voted for the wrong party when we exercised our human right.
“How does he even know what we voted for when we live in a DA ward?
“We will close the road to get the municipality’s attention.
“We get high water bills every month when we [have] not been using municipal water for seven years now.
“Perhaps we need to stop paying.”
Jacobs said the centre had 16 bathrooms that needed water to support the children.
He is often forced to fetch water from the borehole for the youngsters.
Before the flow from the borehole stopped, residents had to use basins to bathe in at about 11pm when they finally had low water pressure in their taps.
Another Nicholas Road resident, Evol Seloane, said there were elderly people on medication in the street who needed fresh water daily.
“Preparing for work and school is a nightmare. We often have to buy water, which most people can’t afford considering the economic situation.
“It is impractical to buy water to do laundry,” Seloane said.
“It’s been two weeks now without the taps on the street, but we mainly want water from the taps at home and don’t want to rely on the borehole.”
Another resident, Jerome Meyer, said they met Ward 11 councillor Graham Gelderbloem last week to discuss the issue, and echoed Jacobs’ complaint about him.
“He is [allegedly] more concerned about telling people they voted for the wrong party,” Meyer said.
“It’s our constitutional right to have water in our homes. We don’t care about politics. We want services.”
However, Gelderbloem said residents were lying about him telling them they voted for the wrong party.
“All I said was that only one party should run the municipality because when there is a coalition government, you can’t hold anyone accountable.”
Gelderbloem said several communities connected to the Emerald Hill Reservoir had also been affected by intermittent water outages.
“I was with the superintendent for the infrastructure department when we were told that issues are caused by load-shedding because the pump station can’t channel water to the reservoir when there is no electricity.
“But in most cases the outage is caused by soil that clogs the valves, which have to be cleaned regularly, but that doesn’t seem to happen.
“I have written to the mayor [Babalwa Lobishe] and the acting executive director for infrastructure [and engineering] Joseph Tsatsire about these issues, but there’s nothing I can do when I don’t get any responses from the administration,” Gelderbloem said.
The city issued a water disruption alert affecting 22 communities on Tuesday arising from issues at the Emerald Hill Reservoir.
“The municipality would like to advise residents that we have experienced intermittent issues throughout the night with the Schoenmakerskop pump station, which may result in low reservoir levels in the areas,” it said.
According to Meyer, officials had previously said infrastructure problems at the Newton Park pump station were the cause of the water issue.
“The councillor has also told us that the Emerald Hill Reservoir is empty and, therefore, pressure is low.
“It’s always the same excuses, and it’s been seven years of the same thing.”
Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya did not respond to questions by the time of publication.
The Herald
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.