The Cederberg Municipality urged residents of Clanwilliam, West of Cape Town, to boil water before consumption until further notice.
The Municipality’s communications department said this is a precautionary measure, to guarantee extra safety.
This follows a technical assessment, of water quality and supply reliability challenges affecting the town.
The current system is vulnerable due to its single-feed configuration and was severely affected by recent floods.
Clanwilliam’s potable water is abstracted from two raw water sources -the Olifants River via Clanwilliam Dam and the Jan Dissels River.
Both source lines converge into a single bulk conveyance pipeline prior to discharge into the 3ML storage reservoir. This common-manifold arrangement means both sources co-mingle upstream of storage, with no isolation capability. Consequently, contamination or elevated turbidity from either source compromises the entire raw water feed to the reservoir, as evidenced by the current post-flood conditions.
The Municipality’s provided water tankers in the short term, and plans to implement a pipeline segregation project in the medium term.
The scope includes construction of two independent inlet pipelines from each abstraction point directly to the 3ML reservoir. This will replace the existing single combined line.
“The dual-feed configuration will provide hydraulic isolation, allowing operators to take one source offline without interrupting supply from the alternate source. Under the revised arrangement, the Olifants Dam pipeline can be isolated while the Jan Dissels line remains active, ensuring continuity of supply during source-specific water quality events” said the Municipality.
Picture: Supplied