Rhodes may have to close

THE DEPARTMENT OF Water and Sanitation said it was working hard to ensure Makhanda Local Municipality residents are not left without water.

The department’s spokesperson, Sputnik Ratau, said: “We don’t want the system to fail. We are working hard to ensure that residents have water.”

This follows reports that the area in the Eastern Cape was facing “Day Zero”.

This weekend, The Gift of the Givers said the Settlers Dam, which supplies water to Makhanda, was at 13%. The organisation said because water cannot be extracted from the last 10% because of high silt levels, the dam had only 3% of water reserves. This left residents without water for three days.

Ratau said the municipality also needed to deal with huge water losses within its systems. “The main thing is to recognise the huge amount of water losses the municipality is experiencing. The national department is in ongoing discussions with the municipality on how this can be done effectively.”

The lack of water would be a huge blow to residents and Rhodes University, which has about 10 000 students. The university has indicated it can operate between three and five days without the municipality water supply. After that, it would have to shut down.

For the majority of the weekend, the area had no water.

A message from the municipality to residents said that because of loadshedding, it would not be able to pump or purify water from Howiesons Poort.

“We urge all residents in the western side to curb water usage to 25 litres a person for the day. We realise that this will require a great effort from every water-user in the west.

“It is anticipated that the James Kleynhans Water Works will be producing 50% of its capacity by tomorrow at the latest. Once power is restored, Howiesons will run at full capacity, but the system may take some time to refill overnight.”

Municipal manager, Moppo Mene, did not respond to queries yesterday.

Hydrologist and geologist Gideon Groenewald, from the Gift of the Givers, said the organisation would engage the municipality to see what sustainable alternatives could be found in the immediate to medium-term as work continues to double the capacity of the James Kleynhans Water Works to 20 Megalitres by 2020.

Gift of the Givers said it had spent R160 million on boreholes, bottled water, animal fodder and food parcels for retrenched farmworkers.