Cape Town – Cape Town Mayor, Patricia De Lille, said that continued high water usage had forced City authorities to consider even more drastic water restriction measures to help save water, this as dam levels had reached critically low levels due to continued drought conditions.
In her address to a full sitting of council on Thursday, De Lille said dam levels were far too low at 40,4%, but despite this, the collective usage of water had not dropped to required levels.
She said it was practically impossible to extract the bottom 10% of water from dams, meaning that in effect Cape Town only had about 30% of water left to use.
"Today we need to consider implementing Level 3B water restrictions because we are not reaching the intended water savings."
De Lille slammed the 20 000 residents who she said had continued to ignore water restrictions despite the fact that "we are in the midst of a severe drought".
"Those residents who have not heeded our call to save water and reduce their consumption have seen an increase in their water bills," she said.
"We have received an additional R254 million from water sales due to sales volumes being higher than anticipated and the impact of the implemented 20% (Level 2) water restrictions on consumption patterns."
"But we can't use this money to buy more water. Because of your abuse, we will all suffer," she said.
"Make no mistake, this is a serious situation that we must all work together to address urgently. Saving water is not optional. We ALL have to save water now to ensure that we have water over the long term."
De Lille said the City's area-based Mayoral Committee Members and the Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services Directorate would be working along with peace officers, law enforcement officers, and councillors to help make sure the City reached its usage targets.
"They will devise a plan that will include door-to-door visits, issuing more fines where applicable, installing water restriction devices if usage on properties continues to be high, and focusing strongly on education and awareness."
She added that where high usage residents continued to fail to comply with restrictions, the City would consider "limiting their usage in some way".