Johannesburg – The Department of Water and Sanitation on Saturday called for caution around water bodies amid heavy rains that have seen the Vaal Dam level rise to beyond 100%.
“It is imperative that all communities downstream of dams and rivers that are rising be cautious around these water bodies,” the department said in a communique.
“Widespread and consistent rainfall across large parts of the country, particularly the inland provinces, has led to high inflows into key dam basins within a short period of time.
“Even as these rains are expected to continue throughout the weekend into the next week, this implies that a higher sense of vigilance is required regarding the performance of the country’s major reservoirs”.
The Department said it was “keeping an eye hourly” on these inflows and their impact on the watercourses and major dam basins.
The department said it “has found the Vaal Dam to have reached 100,49%, and is rising rapidly”.
All the valves were open and assisting with managing the pressure on the infrastructure, the department said.
“Releases from the Vaal Dam will be amended over the next few days based upon the hydrological data to be received of run-off in the Upper Vaal Catchment,” the department said.
“The Vaal-Orange System is receiving huge inflows thus impacting on both the Vaal and Bloemhof Dams, and necessitating releases from Bloemhof Dam as from midday today and will increase further into the afternoon
“Hartbeespoort Dam in the North West is also experiencing high inflows thus the rise in its levels, while at the Pongolapoort Dam in KwaZulu-Natal, the annual releases into the Phongolo River have also begun on Friday 11 November.”
The department said safety around water was critical and it was important to understand that the calls from any local government emergency services need to be adhered to in order to ensure safety of lives and livelihoods.
