With only days to go before parts of Nelson Mandela Bay are expected to run dry, the Kouga municipality is taking the next step and implementing water-shedding from Monday.
The bleak reality of the drought has hit home in Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp and the greater St Francis area and surrounds, which are almost entirely reliant on water supplied by the Churchill Dam.
Kouga residents will be water-shed daily between 10am and 4pm after the municipality made the decision on Friday.
In Nelson Mandela Bay, water boss Joseph Tsatsire warned the crisis would grow worse over the next two months, especially for residents in the “red zone”.
The red zone includes 110 suburbs supplied from the dams.
Adding to the Bay’s woes is that due to low water levels, extraction at Impofu Dam stopped on Friday.
But contingency plans are in place, with the Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA) starting with the construction of water collection points across the metro.
MBDA spokesperson Luvuyo Bangazi, co-ordinator of the water crisis communications task team, said the project was running smoothly, with collection points installed in the Mount Pleasant-Miramar area at the weekend.
The water collection points are supplied from borehole projects and water tankers will be used to bring in water.
Nelson Mandela Bay residents have already been forced to queue in some suburbs after water tankers were dispatched due to a planned shutdown affecting the supply from the Churchill Dam.
Though Tsatsire said the city would not have water-shedding due to its complex water system, he warned outages would be prevalent.
“Those [red zone] areas specifically will not have water and the idea is to have water collection points,” he said.
“Our system is so huge that we cannot have water-shedding due to its nature, compared with the Kouga municipality, which can close a valve here and open up there.
“With us, it’s a bit complicated because of the nature of our network.
“It would take days for us to close one valve so another community has water. It could be three to five days.
“June, July and August are going to be our worst months and are going to be painful for the red zone because if we don’t reduce consumption, JoJo tanks and collection points are going to be our thing.”
Tsatsire said residents could receive some reprieve in August when boreholes in Moregrove, St Georges and Bushy Park are commissioned into the system.
This would add another 15ML to the system.
“At present, we have a deficit of about 50ML. If we can reduce consumption, around September everyone, including those in the red zone, will have water,” he said.
Other parts of the city would continue to get their water supply from the Orange River through the Nooitgedacht water scheme.
Weather guru Garth Sampson said though some rain was expected later this week, it was “nothing to be excited about”.
“The seasonal forecast is just as bad until August-September,” Sampson said.
The Kouga municipality said in a statement on Friday that the Churchill Dam, which households and businesses rely on, had plunged to below 10% capacity.
Kouga mayor Horatio Hendricks said if no rain fell in the catchment area, the region could be left with no water in taps within the next three weeks.
“We have been trying to delay the need for water-shedding, but the situation is critical and we cannot avoid it any longer.
“We know it will be a difficult adjustment for the affected communities, but we ask that they bear with us.
“This measure is necessary to help keep water in the taps for as long as possible,” Hendricks said.
Freddy van Rooyen, founder of Masikhathalelaneni, a non-profit organisation focused on integrated disaster relief in the Kouga region, said though he understood why the decision was made, the effect on people’s lives and livelihoods was the biggest concern.
“What about the health considerations, the economic impact on local businesses and people living in impoverished areas who already struggle for access to water?”
Jeffreys Bay Academy principal Reinet Matthee said after it learnt of the planned water-shedding, the school immediately sent out notices to parents and asked that each child bring five litres of water with them to school.
“This situation has a huge impact during the time of exams,” she said.
The school, situated in Da Gama Road, caters for children from primary school through to high school, offering subjects including hospitality.
According to Matthee, there were added concerns about health and sanitation with toilets not able to be flushed.
Humansdorp laundromat owner Rudi Hendricks said though it had planned for the water outages, it would be a difficult scenario to manage.
“Fortunately, we had a borehole dug last year but the concern is the quality of the water,” he said.
“It is a horrible situation for a business dependent on water and the hours given are very impractical.”
Jeffreys Bay Tourism chair Deon Goosen said though the situation was dire, tourists were being urged not to cancel their plans and bookings.
In a video clip posted on the Kouga municipality’s Facebook page shortly after the water-shedding announcement was made, deputy mayor Hattingh Bornman said the decision to implement water-shedding was not taken lightly.
However, after the supply of water from Impofu Dam was switched off, drastic measures had to be taken.
“We have been trying to avoid this situation since day one but it has become too much of a risk that our taps will run dry,” he said.
Bornman asked residents to stand together to save water and pray for it to rain in the catchment areas.
On Friday, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality alerted the metro’s residents that a planned shutdown of the Churchill pipeline had been extended because maintenance teams discovered water could no longer be extracted from Impofu Dam due to low water levels.
The shutdown, meant to last 48 hours, affected at least 30 suburbs in the Bay.
Metro spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki said on Friday evening a barge had been installed after the dam levels were at 16% but with the dam now at 10.6%, it could be damaged by drawing up sediment.
He said in the interim water would be drawn from the Kouga-Loerie system to make up the deficit, but this could only be done on a short-term basis.
On Sunday, Bangazi said, the Father’s House Family Church made a passionate plea to its thousands of congregants to pray and unite to push back day zero in the metro by following advice on how to conserve water.
“Nelson Mandela Bay is experiencing a severe drought-induced water crisis, compounded by ageing infrastructure and susceptible to regular water leaks, with one dam, Impofu, likely to run out of water in less than a week,” Bangazi said.
On Friday, the metro’s combined dam levels were 12.2%, with Churchill at 9.74%, Impofu 10.16%, Kouga 13.02% and Groendal and Loerie 21.82% and 42.89%, respectively.
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