Cape Town - Some 100 water industry specialists made submissions to the City council’s Request for Information and Ideas process in the city's search for water security solutions.
The process tested the market for “proposed solutions that will enable the City to temporarily establish several small, intermediate and possibly even large plants to help supply drinking water,” said mayoral committee member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services; and Energy Xanthea Limberg.
Limberg thanked the private sector parties who participated.
These included for-profit and non-profit entities who expressed a willingness to form partnerships with the city “to supply, install, and operate temporary plants at various locations along the sea shore and at certain inland locations, for the injection of drinking water, the standards of which are defined by SANS 241 of 2015 into the City’s water distribution network,” Limberg said.
"Our Water and Sanitation Management Department is currently busy with the technical scrutiny of the inputs received. We will communicate in more detail as soon as possible. The proposed solutions are varied, as one would expect from a wide ranging call for information and ideas.
"It must be stressed that the temporary installation of water plants is intended to build resilience and to ensure that the households and businesses of Cape Town are not adversely affected by acute shortages of surface water.
"Furthermore, it is important to distinguish between the inability to cater for water demand under normal climatic conditions and the inability to cater for demand due to an extreme and protracted drought. The latter applies to us. The intensity of the current severe drought could not have been foreseen.
"The City has been using water well under its registered allocation as per the requirements of the National Department of Water and Sanitation. Despite our population growth, our water demand has remained relatively flat," Limberg said.
Limberg was optimistic that long-term solutions could be found that would enable the city to withstand future droughts, "no matter their intensity".
For information on how to adhere to the less than 87-litre usage requirement, residents were requested to visit the water restrictions page on the City’s website and utilise the new water calculator found at Water Calculator CT.