Africa-Press – Seychelles. The Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) is going to undertake a work without the old water pipes in Leo Rochon.
This comes after a lot of repair work that the company needs to do following a lot of acts of vandalism on some of these pipes, precisely in the vicinity of the Army Basin, which is very frequented.
The pipes made of asbestos are more than 50 years old since they were installed. This pipe line takes treated water from the Rochon dam, Sans Souci, to the Hermitage treatment center and continues to supply water to Stevenson Delhomme, St. Louis, via Bel Eau and Bel Air.
During a visit to the area yesterday morning, Frankie Dupres, chief engineer of the water section in the PUC, said that apart from the destruction of trees that are falling on these pipes, the PUC recently noticed that most of the breaks were caused by acts of vandalism.
“These pipes are old and have reached their end. It is so old that any act of vandalism that is done there will be broken. This is the reason why the PUC has made the decision to replace around 500 meters of this pipe, especially the ones on the pillars, with new pipes in a way that if there is any act of vandalism, it will be able to last because the pipe is iron and new,” Mr. Dupres has made a comeback.
Mr. Dupres said that it is the way that these pipes are broken that makes them notice that it is the result of an act of vandalism.
He added that most of the time it is members of the public who inform them about broken pipes.
He noted that when the pipe is broken due to vandalism, due to the topography of the area where transportation is not accessible, it takes PUC an hour to get there to close the valve to stop the water from flowing.
In addition to that, it takes them even more time to clean the pipes in the backyard to replace them, which means that many consumers are not getting water.
According to Mr. Dupres, the work to replace the 500 meters of pipes with the ones in iron will start from the top of Copolia to the bottom of the Army Basin.
Due to the complexity of this work, it will be done by PUC.
With the water restrictions that are in place from 9 am to 5 pm, work to replace these pipes will take about a month, to be done at the most during the day where it will become operational the same day so that people can get water after 4 pm. .
Construction will be done every day (Monday to Friday) except on weekends so as not to disrupt water distribution. The rest of these asbestos pipes are underground.
The communication officer at the PUC, Brigitte Payet, has launched a call to those who are doing these acts of vandalism, especially those who frequent the area near the Army Basin, to arrest them because of their actions, in addition to affecting a large group of consumers, it is also put an extra charge on the PUC where the money could be used by the company to assist consumers in other areas or in other service areas.
He asked anyone to report to the police or the PUC on 4678910 if they see anyone vandalizing these pipes.
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