City’s dashboard shows real ‘water waster’ is... agriculture

REDUCED USAGE BY THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR FOR 10 DAYS TRANSLATES TO A MONTH’S REPRIEVE FOR 3.7 MILLION PEOPLE

THERE are three reasons why the Western Cape is in the claws of a Day Zero scenario and Cape Town people are made to feel like water wasters. Two of these reasons are man-made.

Cape Town, with 3.7 million inhabitants, is sharing the largest dam in the province with the agricultural sector. This dam is the Theewaterskloof Dam, which represents 53% of the total water in the six major dams of the Western Cape.

Since spring, the agricultural sector has been using around 1 200 megalitres (Ml) of water from this dam a day.

The city, at peak water usage, used the same amount, but due to the city mercilessly driving down water usage of 3.7m people, their usage is now reduced to 547Ml a day.

Agriculture unabatedly continued to use 1 200+Ml a day until more or less 10 days ago. This sector was asked as far back as November to cut usage, but if one looks at the city’s dashboard, it is evident that this reduction started only 10 days ago.

Take a closer look at the “wasteful” citizens of the city. It was fact-checked that citizens use 65% of the water supply to the city. A simple calculation shows the following, for the week ending February 5: total water usage by the people living in the metro is 65% of the 547Ml allocated in total. Divided by the 3.7 million people living here, this gives us a conservative maximum usage per person of 95l a day.

The 3.7 million number is based on the census of 2011 and it is widely believed that many more people live in the metro. The 95l water usage a person a day is, therefore, a high estimate – it can be assumed that usage is lower per person than this number.

It is therefore hard to understand or justify why the city council deemed it necessary to impose level 6b water restrictions on the residents.

It is even harder to understand where the city finds the information that “60% of citizens are water wasters”. The level 6b water restrictions also carry increases in water tariffs in excess of 500%, which is grossly unacceptable.

Reason two is the strategic route chosen by the City to drive down water usage of citizens at all costs. Agriculture is set on a growth path, but no additional water is envisaged. The city’s people are forced to reduce water usage, also with zero plans to increase water supply to the city.

What adds insult to injury is the forceful implementation of water management devices at a rate of 2 000 a week and making people pay for these meters! These meters are very often faulty, leaving people without water for days. It is therefore no secret that the citizens of Cape Town feel done in and are very angry. The well-kept secret of the origin of all of this saw the light of day this week when the City’s own dashboard finally showed what was going on.

The reduction in water usage by the agricultural sector for the last 10 days gave a month’s reprieve to the lives of 3.7 million people. Day Zero was moved out by almost one month and we can breathe again.

The DA -controlled city and the Western Cape government must be stopped before they bring ruination to the entire province.