Great water savings‚ Cape Town! Now try harder

Cape Town has beaten its latest water-saving target for the first time‚ and the city council says its response will be to lower the target by a further 14%.

Last week’s consumption of 685 million litres a day was 15 million litres below the target.

“To give our residents an idea of the seriousness of the situation‚ we will be lowering the consumption target to 600 million litres soon‚” said the mayoral committee member for utilities‚ Xanthea Limberg.

Dams were 24.1% full on Monday‚ 1.1 percentage points lower than a week earlier.

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“A year ago we consumed 1.2 billion litres of water a day. We have done quite a tremendous amount to minimise our consumption ... and it is going to take all residents in both the commercial and residential sector to continue their savings‚” Limberg said.

Mayor Patricia de Lille told Cape Town’s climate change coalition on Monday night that under the new “water-sensitive city” designation‚ all urban water sources — stormwater‚ groundwater‚ and treated wastewater — would be regarded as sources of drinking water.

Water experts from the US would visit Cape Town to offer advice on further reducing consumption.

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“Climate change will have significant impacts on the availability of water in our city‚ and the current drought provides us with the perfect opportunity to focus on our minds on the appropriate responses to ensure we can maintain the health and wellbeing our people and our economy‚” De Lille said.

In addition to restrictions already in place‚ De Lille and Limberg noted efforts to repair and revamp water infrastructure‚ lowering mains pressure and punishing heavy users as the key to beating consumption targets.

Limberg said the city was preparing for dam levels to continue dropping and an emergency water supply scheme including tapping the Table Mountain aquifer. “It’s very possible this will kick in later this year‚” Limberg said.

Rain last week concerned Limberg because of its implications on consumers’ mindset. “It really hasn’t changed anything. It will take the dams two or three years to recover‚ not a couple of rainfalls.

“We really need to be intensifying our water-saving initiatives‚ but we think this is achievable. Our progress to date shows we have a commitment to save water and indicates that our customers are working with us and understand the severity of the situation‚” Limberg said.

-TMG Digital/TimesLIVE