Pipe bursts cause temporary ‘water crisis’ in Garden Route town

The George municipality has pleaded with residents and visitors on Wednesday to use water sparingly after three major pipe bursts over 24 hours throttled supply in the Garden Route capital.

The pipe bursts were attributed to infrastructure damage caused by flash floods on November 22.

“Three major pipe bursts have taken place over the past 24 hours. Residents and visitors to George are urgently requested to use water sparingly over the next 48 hours as this will affect supply to a large portion of the city,” the municipality said.

The Garden Route Dam raw water pipeline that feeds the balancing dams burst early on Wednesday.

“This pipeline is the main supply of raw water to our balancing dams, which in turn provide raw water to the treatment works for purification. This pipeline burst has a major impact on the water supply for the entire city,” said the municipality.

The Blanco drinking water pipeline burst 24 hours ago and, after being repaired twice, burst a third time at 2am on Wednesday.

“The Malgas raw water pipeline that pumps raw water from the Malgas River to the balancing dam has been fully repaired. George civil engineering teams will start this morning to systematically reopen the pipeline to ensure the repair has held.

“This process will take several hours until certain the repair is holding and the pipeline can be used to pump at full capacity into the balancing dam.”

The repairs on the two remaining pipes would take at least 36 hours. 

“Our teams have been working non-stop and additional resources are being called in to assist. It must be noted the Garden Route pipeline requires specialist knowledge in terms of repair work.”

The municipality called on people not to wash cars, water gardens or wash laundry on Wednesday to ensure there was enough water for essential use.

In a separate alert, the municipality said no swimming or water sports would be allowed in the Touw River, mouth or lagoon after water samples taken on Tuesday afternoon had “failed” quality tests.

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