#EveryDropCounts: ‘Too soon to ease water restrictions’

Cape Town - Despite dam levels rising to more than half of their capacity and desalination plants coming online in Monwabisi, Strandfontein and the Waterfront, water restrictions will remain in place as the City says it’s too soon to relax restrictions.

The desalination plants that came online add an additional 12 million litres of water to the reticulation system each day, but according to mayco member for Informal Settlements, Water, Waste Services and Energy, Xanthea Limberg, this is a small part of the city’s overall usage.

“Although our situation is much improved, we are by no means out of the woods yet. The National Department of Water and Sanitation will make a risk-based decision on when and by how much to lower water restrictions. Relaxing these in haste would be risky and short-sighted.

“Dam recovery over the past few weeks has slowed down significantly, in contrast with the rapid rise in dam levels experienced in previous months. It’s very much based on the recovery of the dams and whether it is sufficient or not,” said Limberg.

@IAmAthinaMay

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Cape Argus