Cape Town - The City of Cape Town’s crumbling sewer and water infrastructure has come under the spotlight.
This after a road caved in in Harpford Avenue, Wynberg, because of a burst sewerage pipe on Sunday, which at first glance seemed to be a sinkhole, as well as a pipeburst in Long Street over the weekend.
A Wynberg resident said the road collapsed suddenly on Sunday and he became aware of it because of the noise caused by workers carrying out emergency repairs. The resident said they were only mildly affected as the road had to be closed for a short while.
Water sanitation Mayco member Zahid Badroodien said: “This is a collapsed sewer which was made safe by staff from Southfield Roads infrastructure depot on Sunday. The sewer is about 2.5m deep and a contractor is being engaged to attend to this collapse.”
Ian McMahon said the Long Street water outage was the result of a burst on a main water pipe and the leak was repaired the same day it burst on Friday, although the road’s surface was severely damaged from the gushing water.
“The road was temporarily closed but was opened again in the afternoon, just after lunch time,” McMahon said.
Badroodien previously said the City maintained an extensive water pipeline network city-wide and water pipe bursts occurred in different areas across the city for various reasons, including ageing infrastructure. The City’s water and sanitation directorate set aside just over R100 million this financial year to replace ageing water pipeline infrastructure across the city.
Stop CoCT founder Sandra Dickson said the lack of upkeep and maintenance on the City water piping system over many years was finally being addressed. However, the strategy to densify the CBD and other areas, as well as the unhindered development, was overloading an already ageing and vulnerable sewage system.
“The City approves huge developments with little regard for the effect it has on ageing infrastructure. It is concerning that proper and credible feasibility studies around additional sewage caused by new developments play such a small role when these developments are approved,” Dickson said.
Dickson said the City should consider balancing sustainable development principals in their planning of new developments and pay more attention to the chronic overburdening of its ageing pipes and sewerage systems.
