The City of Cape Town has announced they will be implementing water shedding protocols across the Western Cape which may disrupt water supply during peak hours.
The City of Cape Town has announced that they will be implementing phase 1 of the water shortages disaster plan. This means they are rolling out water rationing in areas that have high water usage numbers.
Current consumption is at 585 million litres of collective usage per day. Water shedding will only be implemented in areas that do not comply with level 5 water restrictions. The rationing will affect peak water usage times in the mornings (between 5 am and 9 am) and in the evenings (between 5 pm and 9 pm) if usage is above the required levels.
“Reducing water usage remains the most vital intervention to help see the city through the summer ahead.” – Xanthea Limberg, Mayco member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services and Energy.
The city will return water supply if the areas reduce their usage and comply with the set water restrictions. The rationing will take place in to form or pressure control.
“With the help of almost half of Capetonians, as well as our pressure interventions, leak management programme and the installation of water management devices, we have brought usage down from more than 1.1 billion litres per day to the current volume – but further critical measures, such as pressure reduction, must be intensified to maintain reduced demand throughout summer.”
To Prevent:
There are ways to make sure that your area isn’t affected by rationing. To prevent being targeted make sure to inform your neighbours of the risks of high water usage. Share tips and if you have used grey water a neighbour could use, pass it along.
Water saving should become a community project instead of a single household project. Propose having weekly meet-ups with neighbours to keep up to date with new information from the city.
Any neighbourhood that remains under the limit has a good chance of retaining its water supply, even if its a low pressured one.
To Prepare:
If your area is one of the areas that gets rationed, there are a few ways to prepare for the waterless mornings and evenings.
- Residents are urged to keep between 5 and 10 litres of water available for drinking use only for the household. Residents should also keep additional water for pets.
- Invest in a good dry shampoo, this will limit the number of times you will need to wash your hair (this includes men).
- Tap water should only be used for consumption or for essential washing.
- Fill your toilet with dirty water and only flush when absolutely necessary.
- Forget the garden all together! There are so many more important things to worry about, nature is resilient and will bounce back when the time is right.
- Do not assume because it has rained, that it is ok to use more water. This is a common mistake and makes things much worse. Even if it rains, wait for authorities to announce that water consumption may increase.
- Encourage your neighbours to work together in saving water.
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