City’s water disaster plan

MAYOR Patricia de Lille has announced key aspects of the City’s critical water shortages disaster plan to avoid residents running out of municipal drinking water.

She said reducing water pressure (throttling) would be the first phase of three.

There were no timetables of the disruptions, and zoned outages would probably occur during peak water usage times in the mornings and evenings.

Phase two would be the disaster stage where only a certain portion of the system would be kept alive close to water collection points.

Residents would then be able to collect a predefined quantity of drinking water per person per day from these sites. Phase three was the extreme disaster phase.

“Non-surface drinking water supplies, sourced from groundwater abstraction from various aquifers and spring water, will be available for drinking purposes only.

“The City will distribute this drinking water to residents through water distribution points.”

De Lille said phases two and three could be avoided with “progressive savings and rationing in Phase 1”.

Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane met De Lille and Local Government MEC Anton Bredell yesterday to again assess the Western Cape drought situation and interventions being implemented.