Water brake as dry dams threaten

EIGHT Eastern Cape towns including Port Elizabeth face water restrictions due to the widespread drought.

Dams in some areas have already dried out. Those around Butterworth and Dutywa are expected to be dry in four months, said cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) MEC Fikile Xasa.

Xasa said Dutywa, Butterworth, Libode and Matatiele were on 20% water restrictions when authorities cut off supply at various intervals during the day.

KwaBhaca, (formerly Mount Frere), Aliwal North, Steynsburg, Cradock and Port Elizabeth are on 10% restrictions.

Xasa revealed this in a November 18 response to a Bhisho legislature question by DA MPL Kobus Botha.

Some parts of the province were so hard hit by the drought late last year that the provincial government declared them disaster areas.

Xasa said since June the Mountain Dam in Matatiele, the Hoggsett, Anderson and Munnik dams in Dordrecht, Mhlanga Dam in Libode and Lady Grey Dam had all dried up.

Without heavy downpours he gave the Dutywa Dam four months and Butterworth Dam three.

Xasa said Toleni Dam would also be dry in three months, Ngqeleni Dam six months and the supply in the KwaBhaca dam 10 months.

The Amathole district municipality in August introduced restrictions for the towns of Adelaide and Bedford in the newly-established Raymond Mhlaba municipality.

Water supply is being stopped between 8pm and 5am in Adelaide and Bedford until further notice.

Xasa said water shortages were being felt the most in the district municipalities of Alfred Nzo, Chris Hani, Joe Gqabi and O R Tambo.

He said the provincial government’s disaster management committee had taken a “multidisciplinary, integrated approach in dealing with the declared disasters to improve coordination, and mobilisation of resources”.

The government’s short-term interventions would include “the reprioritisation of financial resources from the municipal water infrastructure grant, provincial treasury, rural development and agrarian reform department and municipal revenue”.

He said the state would also look at buying water tankers and trucks as opposed to hiring them and repairing existing boreholes and windmills.

The government also plans to procure and install water storage tanks at strategic points in the affected communities.

He said in the long term, the government would look into fast-tracking existing infrastructure development projects, investigating more sustainable water sources and prioritising water management master plans and water services development plans in affected areas. —