Kim Kemp | Editor
Water Sewage & Effluent November/December 2017
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supervised by national ministries for what
it claims is an inadequate response to the
crisis. While DA leader Mmusi Maimane said
that the national government has not been
cooperative with the province in terms of the
water crisis, and believes some ‘political ill-
feeling’ is at play, national government denied
those claims.
Meanwhile, how many of us know that
water restrictions have been in place since
2005? These were intensified in December
2015 and have been made more extreme
since then. Some experts believe, however,
that trying to turn the water crisis around at
this point – by installing desalination plants,
for example – will be too costly and that
water may run out before plans are properly
implemented.
Critics of the local and provincial
government response argue that water
restrictions should have been put in place
sooner and projects developed earlier.
Richard Bosman, executive director of
Safety and Security, wrote in the introduction
to the city’s disaster plan, released the first
week of October after the national water
ministry asked for tighter water restrictions:
“If we don’t pull together now and drive down
water usage even further, we face the risk of
disrupting the daily lives of our households
and businesses.”
The disaster plan assumes that no new
water sources will become available before
the next rainy season, and the disruption that
officials are desperate to prevent is a total
shutdown of the city’s reservoir system, which
would entail no running water for homes and
businesses. In this event, Cape Town plans to
have the police and military guard distribute
fixed amounts of water from wells, functioning
taps, tanker trucks, or bottles at collection
points scattered across the city.
And while finger-pointing intensifies, Day
Zero, when the taps literally run dry, could
come by March 2018. u
technology
T
he mood in Cape Town has grown
significantly more sombre over the past
few months as city officials focus public
attention on the severity of the water crisis,
featured in every media stream available.
While the possibility of the city running out of
water is a harrowing thought, the blame game
is in full force.
You see, 20/20 vision is only possible in
retrospect.
While the City of Cape Town is exploring
various measures to boost access to water
– including sea-based desalination, water
reclamation, and groundwater abstraction
projects – it is also pondering ways to access
money to implement these plans.
Eight months ago, the DA-led Western
Cape government pushed for the province
and the City of Cape Town to be declared a
disaster area, while the Water and Sanitation
Department dismissed the need, with Western
Cape Premier Helen Zille saying that a
declaration would ensure the province has
funding for resources. The ANC's Cameron
Dugmore argued that the province and the
city had woken up too late “and must accept
responsibility for a failure to manage the
water crisis facing the City of Cape Town”
while other ANC members scoffed that the
province was merely seeking sympathy.
In May this year, the City of Cape Town
realised its water saving measures were
not working. It therefore had to relook its
plan and, finally, Zille officially declared the
province a disaster area with dam levels in the
Cape at a worrying 20.7% level. In fact, with
the last 10% of a dam’s water mostly unusable,
dam levels were effectively at 10.7%.
The city has since taken drastic measures
to reduce its water consumption, from
introducing Level 4 restrictions on 1 July
2017, to upping the ante to Level 5, reducing
water pressure, and installing water meters
for delinquent users, to thwart excessive water
consumption.
Despite these measures, local government
response has roused national political tension,
with the provincial arm of the ANC calling
for Cape Town and the Western Cape to be
The blame game – while CT swelters