For the first time in history, ships calling in Cape Town are no longer allowed to fill up with fresh water, because of the city's severe drought.
Transnet last week confirmed a ban on the sale and supply of drinkable fresh water to all vessels calling at Cape Town. They have been urged to fill up further along the coast.
"While it is conceded that these measures may have a negative impact on some business components, so dire is the situation in the city that the port is resolute in its decision in the interest of basic survival of all who have to live in this region," Transnet said.
The decision also affects ship repairers and lay-by vessels, which have been instructed to get fresh water from other sources, such as desalination systems."This will enable us to increase the water volume that can be sustainably extracted over and above that provided by rainwater infiltration," she told the Sunday Times.
"Our immediate focus is the emergency installation of boreholes to provide much-needed additional water."
The city has already fast-tracked tenders for desalination and groundwater extraction. Last week it outlined emergency procedures should the city run dry.
"It is very serious," said the University of Cape Town's Kevin Winter. "There are some huge unknowns at this point because the technical detail and potential to generate the planned volume of water, either from the ground, from treated effluent and from groundwater, are unknown - at least to the general public."
Meanwhile, the airborne pine eradication project appears to be bearing fruit.
"We have already done an initial trial and the impact on the fynbos is negligible - it's a good-news story," said Deon Rossouw, manager of CapeNature's Limietberg Reserve.
Elsewhere farmers have begun removing fruit trees in the absence of irrigation water, after their water quotas were reduced.
The crisis has sparked innovative community projects, such as a "greening" initiative along the Liesbeek River, once a source of drinking water for Khoi herders and used to irrigate crops in the early days of the Cape colony. It now runs most of the way to the sea through a canal.
The city council and local residents have joined forces to turn the canal back into a natural state and start a vegetable garden along one of its banks with the help of homeless people living nearby. The idea is that a more natural Liesbeek acts as a water filter, potentially increasing the supply of drinkable water.
THE DRY FACTS
• Cape Town’s main storage dams are 37.4% full.
• The two biggest dams – Theewaterskloof and Voëlvlei – are the emptiest, at 27.5% and 26.6% respectively.
• Cape Town has reducedwater consumption by 40% to 600 million litres a day; the council wants daily consumption reduced to 500 million litres.
• The council is fitting 2,000 water-management devices a week, to restrict the daily consumption of offending households to 350 litres.
• Tourists this summer will be greeted by a water crisis campaign urging them to “Save like a local”...