Water shortages could dampen holiday spirit

KwaZulu-Natal shops and hotels take no chances after a dry winter

HOLIDAYMAKERS heading to KwaZulu-Natal’s North Coast may have to stock up on drinking water — the main dam supplying the area is running critically low.

Already, shops, guesthouses and hotels in Ballito — a fastgrowing tourist hot spot north of Durban — are stocking up on bottled water and have installed water tanks amid fears that the town could run dry over the holiday period.

The Hazelmere Dam, which supplies Ballito and some of the Durban metro’s northern suburbs, is just 43% full. This time last year it was full.

Further up the coast at St Lucia, which forms part of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a world heritage site, there are concerns that shortages experienced in recent months could spell doom if the early summer rainfalls are too low.

On the South Coast, some businesses have taken similar precautions to avoid the water shortages they experienced during the holiday season last year.

Experts say the water shortages are a result of a particularly dry winter.

“Normally, we have 10 days’ supply of bottled water on our shelves. By the first week of December, we’ll have two months’ stock,” said Michael Lasserty, manager of the Pick n Pay in Ballito.

He said companies were made

We have installed our own water tanks for the store

aware of the water crisis earlier this year and had already started preparing for the worst-case scenario.

“We realised there could be a problem. From a usage point of view, we have installed our own water tanks for the store. On the retail side, we have three weeks’ stock on our shelves, and we’ll go up to four weeks’ stock next week, then up to two months. We have to be prepared,” said Lasserty.

Ballito Spar assistant manager Pragasen Ramcharan said the store had been planning for the water shortages expected this December.

“We’ve tripled the amount of water we normally keep, from 500ml bottles through to 5l and 10l bottles.

“We’ve already started bringing in extra water because we didn’t want to only start ordering once we started having the problems,” he said.

One guesthouse owner, who did not want to be named, said she was worried about the water situation because they — and other establishments — were fully booked for December.

“We haven’t even figured out what to do yet. It’s all a bit confusing at the moment. We are going to have to write to our guests to tell them about the water shortages that are coming, and we are having to stock up. It’s going to be a very costly exercise,” she said.

She also blamed the municipality for not taking the necessary steps to avoid a festive season crisis.

Andrew Zaloumis, CEO of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, said he hoped that the water shortages would not continue into December.

In recent months, the lack of rain meant the Umfolozi River, which supplies St Lucia and neighbouring towns, had almost dried up, municipal water pumps were broken and reserve reservoirs were not working.

But Zaloumis said these problems had been cleared up.

Cheryl Peters, spokeswoman for the economic agency for iLembe Municipality — which includes Ballito — said she did not expect tourism to be affected by the water shortages, but holidaymakers would have to use water sparingly.

“We would like to encourage visitors to the region to please comply with water restrictions. We understand that they are on holiday and want to have fun in our region, but we request that they please comply,” she said.

Restrictions have been introduced to cut consumption by 30%, but this will only give the municipality enough water to last until the end of March.