Progress in City’s emergency water supply plans

THE City says its plans of potentially partnering with the private sector to create a short-term emergency water supply using desalination, stormwater capture or aquifer extraction are progressing.

Yesterday was the closing date for responses in terms of the Request for Information to the private sector that the City issued to see how partnerships could help with its short-term emergency water supply schemes.

Waste and water services mayco member Xanthea Limberg said all submissions would be analysed from this week onwards.

This was part of the City’s proactive drought management interventions, along with increasing the large-scale pressure reduction programmes across Cape Town to force down consumption, she said.

Limberg said other emergency and high-user interventions were under way.

Dam storage levels stood at 25.4%, meaning that usable water was only at about 15%.

“Collective water usage is 619 million litres per day. This is 119 million litres above the new target of 500 million litres under Level 4b water restrictions.

“Water users must take note that over the past month our dam storage levels have only increased by 6%,” she said.

Residents are required to use less than 87 litres of water per person per day in total, irrespective of who they are.

“We encourage friends, neighbours, families and colleagues to join efforts and to see how they can brainstorm new ways of saving water to bring water usage down even further to below 87 litres of water in total per person per day, wherever they are.

“Peer monitoring could also be a good way to keep motivation levels high,” said Limberg.

Residents can contact the City via e-mail at water@capetown.gov.za for queries or to report contraventions of the water restrictions (evidence should be provided to assist the City’s enforcement efforts), or they can send an SMS to 31373.