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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