New water restrictions for Cape residents

Starting on February 1st, Cape Town residents will be limited to 50 litres of water per person per day for five months as “Day Zero” draws closer. Day Zero is the day when taps will be closed and residents will be required to get water from various designated water collection points.

“We have reached a point of no return. Despite our urging for months, 60 percent of Capetonians are callously using more than 87 litres per day,” said City of Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille.

“The new daily collective consumption target is now 450 million litres per day. This will be in place for 150 days after which the city will reassess the situation,” she said.

The Mayor said the city has had to assume that high water users will not change their behaviour and therefore the city has been forced to implement stringent measures in an attempt to delay the onset of Day Zero. The estimate at this point is that Cape Town will run out of water on 21 April 2018.

At the same time officials have warned that the city’s seven augmentation projects which are set to produce around 200 million litres per day are not enough to avert Day Zero. “While our water augmentation programme will make Cape Town more water resilient in the future, it was never going to be enough to stop

Day Zero,” said the Mayor.

Planning for Day Zero is at an advanced stage with approximately 200 sites having been assessed.

“We will also be making detailed Day Zero contingency plans available soon to answer all questions that residents and businesses might have,” said De Lille.