Capetonians warned to brace for water rationing

City of Cape Town residents must expect water rationing due to the critical nature of available water supply.

The city said water rationing could lead to water supply disruptions.

“This is likely to result in water supply being disrupted during peak water usage times in the mornings (between 05:00 and 09:00) and in the evenings (between 17:00 and 21:00) if usage is above the required levels‚” the city said in a statement.

It said dam storage levels were at 38.5%‚ with useable water at 28.5%.

The city said its engineered rationing intervention was starting to have an effect on consumption but water usage must be reduced further.

It said consumption was at 585-million litres of collective usage per day.

The city activated water rationing as part of the implementation of its Critical Water Shortages Management Disaster Plan.

It said theoretically everyone should have water‚ but that the duration of the outages would depend on the water usage for the area and whether it was within the water restriction levels.

“The City supplies sufficient water to an area‚ but if the demand is too high then those in high-lying areas or high-lying properties will experience some outages. The City therefore appeals to those in lower-lying areas to reduce usage to assist in terms of outages in the higher-lying areas.”

The City’s mayoral committee member for informal settlements‚ water and waste services and energy‚ Xanthea Limberg‚ said reducing water usage remained the most vital intervention to help see the city through the summer ahead.

“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‚” Limberg said.

She said the city continued to install water management devices on the properties of delinquent water users.