Water-wise

Unlike the people of Gauteng, we’ve not been very lucky with water over the past several months. Dam levels in many cities and town in the Eastern Cape are dangerously low, and in some cases less than 30%. Most municipalities have been compelled to impose water restrictions.

These often include, but not are not limited to not washing cars, no garden-hose watering, no filling swimming pools, and certainly no hosing around. Additionally, we should all have received messages about the critical dam levels in Grahamstown, and why it was important for each household to devise its own little ways of conserving water.

That might require some sacrifices related to the Easter weekend. This is often a time for family reunions, and perhaps the longest break until the end of the year. Often, we're tempted to wash our vehicles, hose down the driveway and generally use quite a bit of water.

Obviously, if everyone is doing the same thing at the same time, those entreaties from the municipality will mean nothing. There is no shame in driving a grime-caked vehicle if you're doing it for a good cause. And now that the summer appears to be behind us, those lucky enough to have pools ought not to fill them again.

Between Church, family parties and a lot of cooking, water use inevitably goes up. But what is being asked of us (in addition to the gazetted restrictions), is to be mindful of the water scarcity in our town.

Jesus himself would probably be okay if we used paper plates on the day of his resurrection, just so we can save a few litres. It will be in the aggregate of all our actions that we might be able to ride out the effects of the insufficient rainfall we've received.

There is also perhaps a certain responsibility on part of the municipality to ensure that there is a level playing field. Misuse of water is not restricted to any race, class, gender or sexual orientation. Enforcement, education and public service campaigns should target all of Grahamstown. It's also crucial that a surveillance system is in place to allow municipal technicians to get accurate information about burst water pipes.

We’ve been aware for a while now that the city needs tens of millions of rands to revamp the piping system. That will take money that we don’t have; and considering what is happening at the centre, we are unlikely to get either from the province or from the national government.

We are therefore doomed to continue replacing one rotten clay pipe by one rotten clay pipe.

Again, as responsible citizens, we can all perhaps not log onto the Internet for an hour or so, and instead, use the airtime to report leaks. Again, it has nothing to do with whether one is rich or poor. We're all in this together, and the day we might all have no water will dawn the same way.

No one can say they didn't see this coming.