Stealing our underground water is as bad as polluting it.
How is it that the minister of water affairs has declared alien vegetation illegal in water catchment areas and yet Table Mountain National Park has many thousands of pine and gum trees daily sucking up water that should be allowed to flow its natural course underground?
If each adult tree consumes 500 litres of water per day, then our city is allowing grand theft of this precious and unique resource to continue to happen through our drought crisis.
When dams are completely dry, the Table Mountain aquifer is our last hope. Winter rains falling take months to filter into our dams and a drier winter can only exacerbate this tragedy.
The time to act is upon us.
Newlands Spring is overcrowded and cannot cope with this new demand.
The new borehole in the City Bowl is months away and desalination of sea water longer.
Alien water-thieving trees should be felled sooner than later, once and for all – for our Cape Town citizens’ sake.