Durban - Water “restrictor washers” are being installed at homes throughout Durban with immediate effect - at the rate of 2 500 every day - as the city comes under growing pressure from the government to conserve dwindling water supplies from drought-hit dams in the uMngeni River system.
Ednick Msweli, the head of the eThekwini Municipality’s water and sanitation department, confirmed on Wednesday that at least 80 contractors had been sent around the city on Tuesday to start fitting water restriction devices to more than half a million (mostly domestic) water connections.
The plan was to install at least 2 500 of the tiny water restriction washers daily in the water pipe connections entering homes across the city.
The washers had holes of differing diameter drilled through the middle to reduce the volume and pressure of water entering homes.
This would avoid the need to cut off water supplies entirely at certain times, and was expected to help the city comply with a Department of Water Affairs directive for Durban to achieve an immediate 15% reduction, to preserve water levels in the Midmar and Albert Falls storage dams before the dry winter months.
Midmar Dam was now down to 47% and Albert Falls just 35%, despite recent rains.
It is understood the city received a government directive that water for domestic and industrial use would have to be cut by 15%, while water for agricultural irrigation would be cut by 50%.
It was not clear last night whether supplies to industry and commerce would also be reduced via restrictor washers.
However, Msweli gave the assurance that there were no plans to impose water rationing along the lines of the staged nine-hour-long water shut-offs contained in an eThekwini Water contingency plan document leaked to social media and newspapers last month.
“We are not there yet,” he said, noting that water rationing would be a last resort. He said the city had learnt lessons from last year when the level of Hazelmere Dam began to drop rapidly. Though city officials had urged people in the northern areas to reduce water consumption voluntarily, no measurable reduction was achieved.
“Voluntary water restrictions did not work.”
The city had found that staged water cut-offs in suburbs supplied from Hazelmere led to an increase in pressure-related “off-on-off” water pipe bursts and eThekwini wished to avoid similar problems elsewhere.
He said several thousand restrictor washers had been installed already in the areas supplied by Hazelmere.
The exact location of all water connections fitted with restrictor washers, throughout Durban, was being recorded using GPS technology so that the restrictors could be removed at a future point when the drought was finally over.
Fielding questions from Chamber of Commerce members on why the government had not commissioned new, larger dams, Msweli said a balance had to be struck considering the huge cost of building new dams to ensure reliable supplies during drought periods.
For example, the building of the Spring Grove Dam on the Mooi River had pushed up Durban water tariffs by about 40c/kl.
Building the larger proposed Smithfield Dam on the uMkhomazi River (or a new desalination plant off the coast of Durban) was likely to produce “scary numbers” for future tariffs.
On whether the current water shortage could have been avoided, Msweli said he thought it was misleading to liken the situation to the Eskom power crisis, since the last serious drought in Durban had been about 20 years ago.
On what the city was doing to repair leaking pipes and collect revenue for water that was stolen or not paid for, Msweli said he believed there was now a commitment from the council to tackle this problem - though it had taken Japan almost 14 years to reduce its non-revenue water losses significantly.
On the large volumes of drinking-grade water going to waste through flushing of toilets, Msweli said the national Department of Water and Sanitation was committed to moving away from flushing toilets.