Cape Town - The City of Cape Town’s Water and Sanitation department are doing their best to keep their services going as the country battles against load shedding.
As a result, the City has had to find means to ensure that various water and sanitation infrastructure such as water and sewage pump stations and wastewater treatment works continue to function.
Mayco member for water and sanitation Zahid Badroodien said that load shedding affected both residents and businesses.
He said the City wanted to ensure that, at the very least, its water and sanitation services continued to operate as optimally as possible and the impact on the environment is prevented or reduced to a minimum.
The new measures include permanent generators at all wastewater treatment plants. Smaller sewer pump stations have been fitted with early warning alarm systems to prevent overflows. The city budgeted R5.7m for them between July 2019 and April 2022.
Additionally, the City is planning to upgrade its top 20 critical pump stations and install a new redesigned Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (Scada) system to monitor the pumping system to ensure it operates as efficiently as possible.
Badroodien said that implementing these measures ensures that there are necessary resources available to navigate the challenges caused by load-shedding as best as possible.