The City of Cape Town has moved Day Zero forward to March, due to high usage of water by residents. This week, dam levels were measured at 33%, having dropped by 1,1% from last week. The City’s overall water usage rose to 641-million litres per day from the previous week’s number of 628-million litres. This has prompted the City to move day zero closer to 18 March 2018.
They have noted that only 34% of residents are saving water. Agricultural users also consumed water at a similar rate to the city.
The City’s Director of Water and Sanitation, Peter Flower said, “If water consumption continues to rise, together with the very hot windy conditions which increase evaporation losses, we can expect Day Zero to happen as soon as 18 March 2018. This is a terrifying prospect. Residential customers remain the largest portion of water users. If we can bring consumption down to 500-million litres per day, we will be able to avoid Day Zero.”
Day Zero will occur when almost all of the taps in the city will be turned off and people will be forced to queue for water at 200 water collection points across the Peninsula.
Although some essential services will stay connected, almost all residential suburbs will be cut off from supply.
The City has said that their teams will be working throughout the festive season to ensure that its response time to leaks or burst pipes is under two hours.
They will also be rolling out an additional 40 000 water management devices from January onwards to high consumption households ignoring water restrictions. More than 21 000 water management devices have already been installed on various properties of high users.
Level 6 water restrictions will come into effect from 1 January 2018 and all households who use more than 10,5 kilolitres per month will have a water management device fitted.
Graphic: City Of Cape Town
Picture: Pixabay