Cape Town - The Western Cape government is in a race against time as it not only scrambles to find innovative ways to boost dwindling water reserves, but to also save and better manage the little water left in dams.
Provincially, the collective dam levels dropped to just under 20% this week, meaning the region has to make due with about 9% as the last 10% of water cannot be extracted from dams.
The Clanwilliam Dam had the lowest level and was practically dry, at just 6.2%, while the level of the Brandvlei Dam near Worcester dropped to 9.3% this week.
Theewaterskloof Dam was, at 14.4%, also critical.
The water crisis has forced the implementation of the provincial government’s “Avoiding Day Zero” project, which includes a number of interventions that will be actioned almost immediately.
This comes after Premier Helen Zille officially declared the province a disaster area on Monday.
The Western Cape had been under its driest spell since 1904, she said.
Project “Avoiding Day Zero”, led by the provincial Disaster Management Centre, would focus on three areas, namely:
1. Demand management: managing the current water supply from the respective sources.
2. Winter conservation: ensuring that water resources are properly managed, despite a rise in dam levels during the rainy season.
This avoids a disaster during the dry months.
3. Groundwater management: ensuring the proper management of groundwater sources like boreholes or the Table Mountain aquifer.
The most immediate interventions in the coming days will include the drilling of boreholes at hospitals, starting in
the metro and followed by schools in high-risk water-scarce areas, according to the City.
Environmental impact assessments for drilling into the Table Mountain aquifer as well as the testing of a mobile desalination plant, using existing water inlet flows used for the reactors at the Koeberg site, will also be accelerated.
Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town is expected to implement Level 4 water restrictions for the beginning of June, which would entail a ban on all use of municipal water for outside and non-essential purposes.
The municipality had announced that some dams were being dredged to scoop out mud, weeds and rubbish to prepare for the low-level extraction of water.
The desperate measures to save water included to only flush toilets when necessary, to shower for less than two minutes a day or to use a wet cloth for a “wipe-down”, to collect all would-be wasted water and use it to fill up toilet cisterns, among others, said mayco member for water service Xanthea Limberg.
“We are essentially saying that you are only allowed to use a bit of water for drinking, cooking and washing,” she said.