Squeeze to tap into dam’s 10%
IT’S a chilling scene. Water levels at the Theewaterskloof Dam are critically low and, to make matters worse, the heat in Grabouw puts the little water left at risk of evaporating.
Yesterday, the department of water and sanitation showed howthe drilling of boreholes and emergency work was under way in the dam basin.
“You can see a body of water along the side, and that body of water is the last remaining 10% that you can actually see. Last year the minister promised that we would get that last 10% to still serve,” said Leonardo Manas, the head of operations and maintenance for the department of water and sanitation.
He said this meant they had had to change their operation.
A canal is currently being constructed at the dam, and a platform is being prepared for six large pumps and a few smaller pumps. “These pumps will have a pumping capacity of 1.5 cubic meters per second. Currently we are constructing a coffer dam,” Manas said. A coffer dam is a structure in the dam to part two bodies of water.
Once dam levels reach 10% the coffer dam will close, and the water will be able to be used. In 2015, the dam level dropped dramatically. Water restrictions were implemented by the City of Cape Town in 2016 to meet a target of 600 million litres of water per day.
By the end of the 2017 dry season, Theewaterskloof had declined to a level of 12.9%. A storm in June last year brought heavy rain, increasing the dam level to 15%. Water restrictions were to Level 4b on July 1, limiting consumption to 87 litres of water per person per day. But by early this year the dam level was again critically low.
“What we want to show is that as the department we are doing something. People have been telling us we can’t use the 10%. We are saying no,” said the regional director of the national department of water affairs, Rashid Khan.