Water, Sewage & Effluent January-February 2018 | Page 3

We are looking for participation from our varied readership and from those ‘on-the- ground’ within the water sector. We want to hear your opinions on current affairs, on improvements to the publication, and even offer you a space to vent. I will select the best letter, whose writer will win a space on our fortnightly bulletin, offering exposure of their company to the readership, with a logo and link to their website. So come and participate! Please send all letters to [email protected] Kim Kemp | Editor | [email protected] Water Sewage & Effluent January/February 2018 1 Starting with the March/ April 2018 issue of Water Sewage and Effluent, there will be a ‘Letters to the editor’ column, in which readers are invited to share industry-related commentary as well as opinions, views, and news. and Sanitation (DWS), related that Minister Nomvula Mokonyane had said the project should be accelerated and it would be underway by 2019. The project involves pumping winter rainfall from the Berg River into the dam and forms part of the National Water and Sanitation Management Plan, comprising one of a handful of “projects of national importance” set for urgent implementation. Now with level 6 water restrictions in place and the spectre of Day Zero looming (due 12 April 2018) Mayor Patricia De Lille explained on national radio what the scenario would entail: “We will reach Day Zero when the dam levels go down to 13.5% ... at that point, we will turn off most of the taps. We will not turn off [all] the taps; we will reduce the pressure, in poorer areas like informal settlements … and then at approximately 200 sites across the city, people will have to collect water from there. And when you collect your water from there, you will only receive 25 litres per person per day,” she warned. A ‘drought’ tax is also on the books, as Capetonians have been so successful in limiting their water usage that the City’s coffers are feeling the pinch with reduced revenue collected through reduced water purchase. The City of Cape Town also stepped up the roll-out of pressure management technology to the various parts of the city’s water supply network, with the first works taking place in Paarden Eiland, affecting some 367 customers. “Not only does pressure management generally lower consumption by reducing the rate at which water flows to properties, it also reduces leaks and pipe bursts by better ensuring that pressure remains within levels that the pipework can tolerate, and reduces the rate of loss from leaks and bursts,” added mayoral committee member Water and Waste Services, Xanthea Limberg. The pressure is on (or should that be off?) and the next couple of months will tell if this has been in time — or will Cape Town be the first major city in the world to run out of water? u technology To the editor s we head into 2018, the drought that is gripping the country in its deathly hold continues unabated, spurring Cape Town to fast-track water access options amid growing desperation. Cape Town has been struggling with the results of poor infra planning for a couple of years now, exacerbated by the worst drought in 100 years. The DA has come under pressure to solve a crisis that has been long in the making. Nevertheless, Khaya Magaxa, acting leader of the ruling African National Congress in the province, said the DA’s record of mismanagement is partly to blame for this water crisis. He said the “DA failed to execute mechanisms” to restrict the use of water and manage the process promptly, to the extent that “We are now reacting in a crisis that is already over our head.” On the other hand, hydrologist Piotr Wolski of the University of Cape Town’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, says that a mathematical analysis of the drought and the water supply was conducted, and he is of the firm opinion that Cape Town engineers and administrators would have struggled to design a water system that could have held up to such a severe challenge as that presently being experienced. Nevertheless, galvanised into action, by mid-January, work on the first desalination plant in the Mother City was underway. About 300 million litres of water will be pumped into the city’s water supply once all the small-scale desalination plants are built. And bonus, recently, the three main aquifers under the city have been found to hold more water than anticipated, after a groundwater survey confirmed they could yield at least 150-million litres of water a day. The Cape Flats Aquifer (CFA) is anticipated to deliver 80 million litres a day. Also, the Table Mountain Group aquifer will deliver 40 million litres a day, while the Atlantis aquifer will deliver 30 million litres a day — a huge relief to the parched city. In addition, plans to increase water supply to the Voëlvlei Dam, scheduled to come on stream in 2024, have been fast-tracked to help with Cape Town’s water crisis. Sputnik Ratau, spokesperson for the Department of Water Running on borrowed time A