Now Zille zeroes-in on crisis
Sends Zuma request to declare the drought a national disaster
WESTERN Cape Premier Helen Zille has now taken charge of the province’s worst drought in preparation for the dreaded Day Zero. Following mayor Patricia de Lille’s announcement that Day Zero is likely to happen on April 22, Zille decided to step in, writing to President Jacob Zuma over the weekend to request that the drought in the Western Cape be declared a national disaster.
Zille spoke to journalists at the Provincial Disaster Risk Centre at Tygerberg Hospital yesterday.
“When it comes to disasters and impending disasters, the province has a critical role to play. When the mayor said it was now likely that Day Zero would happen, that was when the ‘all systems go’ button was pressed. Now we have the potential to be the first city to run out of water,” she said.
Zille said she had not received any feedback from Zuma’s office.
Teamwork and proper co-ordination between local, provincial and national government would be key, she said.
“We did that with the 2010 Fifa World Cup, so we will have to do it again,” she said.
Zille said there are three focus areas, namely water security, economic security and the humanitarian situation.
She said Day Zero won’t creep up on residents and that announcements would continually be made. However, she stressed that augmentation schemes to provide more water would not be enough.
“Everyone needs to keep their water consumption to below 50 litres a day. When the
dams levels reach 13.5% Day Zero would have arrived. Now you can see, it is deadly serious,” she said.
In her weekly Daily Maverick column, Zille said given the current situation, the challenge exceeds anything a major city has had to face anywhere in the world since World War II or the 9/11 attacks in New York City.
“I doubt whether it is possible for a city the size of Cape Town to distribute sufficient water to its residents, using its own resources, once the underground waterpipe network has been shut down,” she said.
The City previously said at least 150 million litres of water a day would be delivered by the Cape Flats, Table Mountain Group and Atlantis aquifers.
Seven projects have been earmarked as part of the first phase of the City’s additional water supply programme.
These are the Monwabisi, Strandfontein, V&A Waterfront, and the Cape Town Harbour desalination plants; the Atlantis and Cape Flats Aquifer projects; and the Zandvliet water recycling project which would collectively produce an additional 196 million litres a day between February and July 2018.
“At current levels, the city is using close to 600 million litres of water,” Zille said.
Asked about the current developments surrounding De Lille, Zille said: “I am confident Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson and Mayco member Xanthea Limberg will do their best. I am satisfied that they are on top of it.”
Colin Deiner, head of the Western Cape disaster risk management service, said the SANDF and SAPS would be ready to be deployed.
“The Disaster Amendment Act allows us to ask for help from the SAPS and army. They will be tasked with helping us in our operations. The national joint operations centre has also issued an instruction for their help. When the button gets pushed, they will be deployed,” he said.
Zille also met with the South African Breweries in Newlands yesterday after it indicated its willingness to assist in the bottling and distribution of water drawn from the Newlands Spring.
“South African Breweries has been the first to step up to the plate. In a discussion this weekend, Ricardo Tadeu, SAB’s zone president for Africa, and Des Jacobs, SABS Western Cape regional director, committed the Newlands brewery to fill 12 million quart bottles with water (instead of beer) from the famous spring (whose water is normally used to brew beer). The SAB network will deliver water to retail outlets in designated areas of greatest need over several weeks,” Zille said.