​Ugu District Municipality will for the next two weeks undergo a partial shutdown at its Umthamvuna Raw Water Works Pump Station. This maintenance programme includes removing the low lift pump to do replacement and servicing of rotating elements as a preventative measure in preparation for the upcoming festive season.The current status quo is that consumer demand equals the pumping capacity. This is average to 23 Megalitres per day which results in the storage dam to operate on a fill and draw configuration. This planned partial shutdown will therefore result in the treatment works to drop by 50% of its production.A special stakeholders engagement meeting which included officials from Ugu, all affected Councillors, Ratepayers Associations and Business Personnel was held at the Umthamvuna Water Works where the issue of this shutdown and other proposed future plans for the upgrading of the pump station was discussed at length. This therefore means that the whole area fed by this plant is now on a Vula Vala schedule and there will be intermittent water supply for the next two weeks. The initial plan was to start the process on Monday this week but due to constant power outage by Eskom at the plant, timeframes had to be adjusted.Schedule for relief measures in the form of static tanks and tankering of water have since been communicated with community leaders. Consumers are urged to use water sparingly during this period.Meanwhile, Ugu have experienced severe drought in its major bulk raw water abstraction point due to long period without rainfall. Bhobhoyi’s St Helen’s Rock water pump station have experienced saltwater intrusion into abstraction point which is 15km upstream of the Umzimkhulu river mouth. This was a result of the spring tide in excess of 1.8 meters which caused conductivity levels to spike over the acceptable levels.The effect of the spring tide has been amplified by low Umzimkhulu river flow during the drought period. Operations and compliance monitoring are conducted hourly to ensure saline water is not abstracted into the bulk systems and into the consumers. To make matters worse, off channel storage dam reserve were depleted during a series of planned and unplanned power outages including load shedding under Bhobhoyi/St Helen supply grid.A berm has since been installed to prevent saltwater pushing upstream to the abstraction point. Operations at the plant are now back to normal and all the affected areas are recovering. This excludes part of Ramsgate and upper Margate. These two areas are experiencing system recovery delays due to a series of power outages.We are continuously monitoring all supply systems to ensure full recovery of all reservoir levels and give our communities uninterrupted water supply. We are grateful of the continuous rainfall that we are currently experiencing and we do hope it will be a huge relief all our affected areas, especially Harding which is hard hit by drought.As part of our long term solution, a feasibility study is to be conducted to construct a permanent weir across Umzimkhulu river to avoid saltwater ingress and enable abstraction during drought period. Implementation of this plan however, is subject to the availability of funds and environmental authorisation processes.We apologise to all our customers for the inconvenience caused during this time. It is our view as the municipality that water is life and as caring water services authority, we shall continue to provide our communities with this basic human right.ENDSISSUED BY:UGU DISTRICT MUNICIPALITYFor more information and media queries contact:Senior Manager: Mayoralty and CommunicationsMr France Zama