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Initial water sources for the growing town of Johannesburg were obtained from three spruits or streams, one at a spruit in Fordsburg which still runs at the western end of Commissioner Street, a stream called Natalspruit at the eastern end of Commissioner Street near Jeppestown and a spring on Parktown ridge where Johannesburg General Hospital stands.
As mining and town expanded so demand grew and two organisations formed to supply water. Braamfontein Water Company with two wells in the Parktown region supplied the town and Vierfontein Syndicate that supplied mining and drinking water while the first grant to supply water came via the Sivewright Concession of 1887 that established the Johannesburg Waterworks and Exploration Company.[2] James Sivewright was granted the concession by the South African Republic (ZAR) to supply water to the town of Johannesburg but the concession did not oblige his company to supply it. By 1889, Sivewright had sold his concession to Johannesburg Waterworks, Estate and Exploration Company Limited, that was owned by Barney Barnato.
The company then built a dam at a site in present-day Doornfontein where the Ellis Park Stadium is now positioned and then pumped the water to a reservoir on the ridge above Saratoga Avenue on the corner of Harrow Road and this gravity fed supply was said to have provided 3,409,569L during the rainy season.[4]: 53 The population of the town, run at that time by a Sanitary Board, was petitioned in 1892 concerning the lack of adequate water supply and its cost, 15s per gallon and 5s per month for metering. The Johannesburg Waterworks Company was said to be supplying 4,091,400L a day by 1895 but had to use mules and carts to transport water to the higher parts of the town during a drought that year and all water still had to be boiled before use.
The ZAR government appointed a commission of enquiry in the same year to investigate the future of water supply and its quality. The commission handed down a recommendation that the management of water supply should be held by a public authority but this had not occurred before war broke out in 1899, the Second Boer War. In 1898, the Johannesburg Waterworks Company sunk boreholes on the farm Zuurbekom, under which was a natural aquifer of 466sq km that would eventually produce 34,09,5000L a day.
By 1901, the British forces were in control of Johannesburg, though the war continued elsewhere, and the idea of a public body to control water supply was resurrected with the formation of a municipal council and by November a commission of enquiry was formed. The Witwatersrand Water Supply Commission was formed on 4 November 1901 and after three months recommended the formation of the public Rand Water Board to supply water to the towns and mines of the Witwatersrand from Springs in the east and Randfontein in the west.
With the creation of the Rand Water Board, bore holes were driven into river bed of the Klip River but by 1914, the Board decided to build a barrage on the Vaal River 64 km to the south of Johannesburg with the Vereeniging Pumping Station which was opened on 27 July 1923 by the Governor-General.: 217 : 56 Water was pumped through 137 cm pipes from the barrage at 1,432m to a height of 1828m on the Witwatersrand.[4]: 56 More water was still required and by 1937 the Vaal Dam was completed 80 km south-east of Johannesburg.[1]: 217 [2]
The next major project was the Lesotho Highlands Water Project in 1998 that saw the construction of several large dams and pipeline transporting water from Lesotho to the Vaal Dam in South Africa.