FAR NORTH
Bulletin F A R 23 June 2017
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Waste not, want not
Litres of water was spewed into Adshade Street on Monday as a private contractor damaged a pipe with a pick while digging a trench for a data cable.
Literally thousands of litres of drinking water was spewed into the air in Adshade Street on Monday afternoon. A water pipe had been damaged by a pick, swung by a member of a private contractor’s crew while digging a trench – or at least that is what one of the crew told Bulletin at the scene. We spoke to Neville Ndlala, the spokesperson for the GTM, who said that a municipal maintenance crew was actually near the site, ironically, repairing a burst pipe at a different location and that a private contractor was digging a trench to lay data cables for internet service providers in the area.
We filmed the private crew as they were digging the trench. One worker was busy compacting the trench while others were filling it with soil. The video can be seen on our website at www.bulletin.us.com. Nevertheless, the pipe was damaged by a pick and left to spew thousands of litres of precious water into Adshade Street and the parking lot of Sugarhill Ok Minimarket across the road. The crew member who spoke to Bulletin at the site, said that he had reported the matter to a supervisor at the municipality an hour and a half earlier, but that nobody had come to turn off the water. This, in turn, led to traffic congestion and near-misses as motorists tried to
avoid having their vehicles sprayed by swerving into oncoming lanes. “We are digging this trench all the way to the Tzaneen dam,” he said. “One of the guys did not see the pipe and he accidentally damaged it with the pick. We can’t turn off the valve because we must wait for the supervisor.” Eventually we saw a municipal vehicle arrive down the street from the leakage. A man climbed out of the vehicle and walked casually over to a drain cover next to the road, opened it and turned off the water. He then climbed back into the car and drove off. There is a very complex formula by which one can calculate exactly how many
Photo: Joe Dreyer litres of water was wasted. The water leakage equation involves multiplications and divisions of pipe circumference, water pressure, hydraulic pressure and the size of the tear in the pipe wall. Because of our lack of facts regarding these essential components, we could not speculate or estimate an exact figure. Our intention was to ask the GTM spokesperson for an explanation, but given the track record of construed responses and vague clarifications from his office, we determined it would be better to have the community make up their own minds. - Joe Dreyer joe@bulletin.us.com
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