Turning off tourism taps
South Coast demands answers on water cuts
SOUTH Coast residents and businesses are still reeling from, and counting the costs of, damaging water outages that affected the area just days ago, and they are demanding answers from the local council.
Residents are now investing in water tanks and keeping their makeshift “water pipe” system – hosepipes connecting their gutters and swimming pools to their bathtubs – in place just in case there is another crippling water outage.
The local council said the situation was under control with supply restored.
Ugu District Municipality suffered a water shortage that lasted just over four days during the peak festive season. The official reason, they said, was that demand outstripped supply in Margate as tourists poured in for the holidays.
Others, however, believe a strike by water department officials could have been the reason.
A report on the council’s investigation into the issues is expected at the end of the month.
Local councillor Dave Watson said while Ugu struggled with supply intermittently, the situation became a “circus” over the festive season, and he believes the South Coast’s seaside holiday image took a knock.
“We had hundreds of thousands of people here, families who saved the whole year to enjoy a few days at the beach, but they could not enjoy their holiday fully because there was poor water supply.
“I believe Margate’s branding was affected and some people said they may not come back, which is unfortunate. Tourist income is the biggest driver of the economy here, and has the biggest growth potential.
“We can’t afford for this to happen again and we need to save the situation and get a functioning water department,” he said.
Among those feeling the pinch the hardest was First Resorts, which manages five leisure properties in Margate.
Johan Mey, the First Resorts KZN operations manager, said they were still establishing the full impact of the outage.
“Right now the figure for the additional costs we had to incur stands at around R300 000, mostly for the rental of water tankers to ensure our guests had water.
“This does not include calculating the accommodation cancellations for the past few days. We’ve had severe financial costs.
“Our legal team will be pursuing a case against the council for failure to provide an essential service,” he said.
Mey said staff had used buckets to collect water from the resorts’ swimming pools to fill toilets for flushing, and had rented tankers to supplement the water supply.
“We’ve also had geysers that blew up, which also caused water damage to units. We still have to sort all that,” he said.
Residents such as Charlene Vorster and Lana Dossantos said they rigged pipes to their house gutters to collect rainwater and channel it to the bath tub. “We shared ideas with each other because it was a horrible situation having no water. We also used water from the swimming pool,” said Dossantos.
The local SPCA was in dire need of water for all the animals at the site. They made an appeal on their social media sites, and locals rallied to their aid, delivering tankers and bottled water, as well as food donations.
Retaurant owner Sandra Kruger, who runs Pop Eye’s Pub and Grub, said it was a “nightmare”.
“It was absolutely disgusting. It cost me thousands to get extra water here. And I still had to close my business for a few days because we couldn’t operate.
“I’m investing in a water tank to collect water in future,” she said.
According to some reports, holiday home owners were thinking twice about keeping their units because guests were fearful of coming down south.
Clive Cowan, of Wakefields Shelley Beach, said the water outages in the greater South Coast area had impacted on the local property market.
“The owners of holiday units may have felt the impact, because they would have had cancellations because of the water outage. Many of the owners rely on the festive season rental income. The festive season is also a time when prospective buyers of holiday homes in the area would have been searching for a place, but with the water outages they may have changed their minds,” he said. The health implications of having had no water was severe. Reports emerged of an increase in cases of gastroenteritis – infectious diarrhoea.
Netcare Margate Hospital nursing services manager, Sarah McKaw said the hospital experienced “a greater number of persons seeking treatment for gastroenteritis in recent weeks than in the equivalent periods for the last two years. The majority of people were treated in the hospital’s emergency department. A few required additional care and were admitted to the hospital.
“We cannot speculate on the cause of the increase in the numbers of gastroenteritis over the last few weeks, but are working closely with the provincial health authorities and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases to assist in their investigations.”
Justin Mackrory, chief executive of Ugu South Coast Tourism, said: “There have been reports of early visitor departures because of the water situation, which I need to stress was not a districtwide issue and was more prevalent in Ramsgate and Port Edward.
“In a very short timeframe the Ugu District Municipality rectified what could have been a much bigger problem for our tourism and leisure sector.”
Ugu municipality’s France Zama said they experienced intermittent water supply challenges in various areas over the festive season, largely because of demand.
“As of last Friday, remarkable progress was made in resuscitating our network to cope with the demand as most of the areas which had no water were restored. All affected areas have been fully restored.
“Technicians worked around the clock to ensure all supply systems are back on track and normal water supply resumes,” said Zama.
I believe Margate’s branding was affected and some people said they may not come back here Dave Watson ward councillor