Joburg Water is implementing an urgent short- to medium-term plan to replace old asbestos-cement piping infrastructure with either unplasticised polyvinyl chloride (UPVC) or steel pipes in the central and northern parts of Johannesburg.
Earlier this month, technical teams from Joburg Water completed an assessment of problematic sections of the network with asbestos-cement piping and will be initiating an urgent project to replace these sections with UPVC or steel piping during the current 2022/23 financial year.
Work has already started and is being closely monitored by the Environment and Infrastructure Services Department (EISD).
A large section of piped infrastructure in places like Craigavon, Bloubosrand, Maroeladal, Chartwell and surrounds is asbestos-cement.
“This replacement project is going to be rolled out urgently in the north of Johannesburg, as well as other flash points like Randburg,” says MMC for the EISD Councillor Michael Sun.
Heexplains that the decades-old infrastructure is not designed to withstand the rapid opening and closing of the water system that occurs during upgrades and routine maintenance.
This month, Fourways and surrounds experienced severe water interruptions as Joburg Water attended to several planned and emergency outages.
“A planned outage caused incessant outages in the immediate vicinity for days, owing to asbestos-cement pipe bursts,” Sun says
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