A drive to connect rural police stations to domestic water sources is underway with at least six police stations in the Amathole District Municipality connected to reliable tap water for the first time.

Amatola Water has spent R6million connecting six police stations in Committees Drift, Tyefu, Punzana, Tsholomnqa, Zele and New Bethesda police stations. Amatola Water has laid 10 km of pipeline and installed five elevated water tanks.

“Previously these stations didn’t have water and they had to rely on a company to fill the tanks when water ran out. Some of them had to get water from boreholes which are unreliable and dry up.

“We were then requested by national Public Works to find alternative water sources, and we subsequently sourced water from ADM, Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) and AW pipelines and we have now completed that process,” says AW project manager Ronney Mtitshana.

Mtitshana says the lack of reliable water at the stations was problematic particularly because “some stations like Punzana and Zele have holding cells for prisoners.”

Amatola Water plant superintendent Maurice Durrheim says some police stations are close to water sources and can be connected to pipelines while others are far.

Durrheim says they are connecting police stations to domestic water sources to rural areas as far as Kinkilbos near Colchester close to Port Elizabeth instead of purifying their own water.

Durrheim explains that every effort is made to connect these stations to domestic drinking water sources where possible, however, “some police stations are very far from water sources and cannot be connected to domestic drinking water and instead have to rely on boreholes for water.”

“In these cases we service their water systems like their sewerage works on a monthly basis, taking samples for analysis, doing maintenance work and we also supply water softeners to make water usable,” says Durrheim.

He says police stations like Bluewaters near Mooiplaas outside East London, Kubusi in the east of Stutterheim, Fort Brown between Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort and Slagboom Police College in Kirkwood in the Cacadu District Municipality depend on boreholes for water.

He says they service the sewerage works for the Storms River police station in Tsitsikama on a monthly basis and they also provide water softeners for the Graaff Reinet Police College and Prison. The New Bethesda police station between Graaff Reinet and Middleburg which is currently using boreholes is also being connected to municipal water sources.