Low-level restrictions are already in place including a ban on watering gardens between 10am and 4pm.

Adding to the low dam levels, rainfall this year has also been below average.

A UCT climatologist said of the past 10 months, eight had had below-average rainfall. May, June and July, usually the wettest months, were “drier than normal”.

Climate models showed this situation was likely to become more common in the years ahead and it could drive up the price of water.

Residents were being urged to conserve water. This appeal comes as climate change is expected to lead to rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns.

The City of Cape Town’s water department was due to meet the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry on Wednesday but has not released any details.

The city’s draft annual report says 19 percent of water was “unaccounted for”. This term refers to the difference in the amount of water purchased and in the city’s distribution system, compared with the amount which is sold to customers.

The report for the past financial year calls for measures to prepare for a “water-constrained future”. Some of the alternatives are desalination of sea water and the greater use of groundwater.

According to the draft report, some water-saving techniques are showing results. One of these is a pressure-management system which reduces the pressure of the water supplied to city consumers during off-peak periods.

This results in fewer leaks. A project like this at Brown’s Farm in Philippi produced an estimated saving of R8.2 million annually. After the project was introduced, there was an immediate drop in consumption.

Levels of the six major dams supplying Cape Town are at the lowest they have been in four years. On November 7, levels stood at 86 percent. Last year at this time they were at 93 percent and at 102 percent in 2009. Levels peaked in 2008 at 103 percent and were 99 percent in 2007.

Farouk Robertson, spokesman for the city’s water and sanitation department, said the city had “never relaxed” its appeal for residents to use water wisely.

Robertson said the city had expanded rapidly over the past few years and economic activity had increased.

This had led to more water consumption.

He urged residents to “amplify water conservation efforts”.

One tip was that residents should monitor the moisture of the soil in their gardens and, if necessary, introduce composts which would reduce the evaporation of water.

Another measure was to use buckets to wash cars, instead of hosepipes.

Robertson appealed to home-owners to watch their water meters and report leaks immediately.

“If you are wasting water, you are depriving other people of good quality drinking water. Know what you going to do, before you open the tap,” he said.

Peter Johnston, a climatologist with UCT’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, said for May, June and July, rainfall was less than 80 percent of the long-term average.

Johnston added that as December approached and it got hotter, around 1 percent of the volume of dam water would be used or lost due to evaporation each day. Because, November had been cooler, it had lessened the impact of evaporation.

“This is the sort of thing we can expect. We should get used to this scenario occurring more often and it’s a call for all us to watch our demand and usage.”

The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry was not immediately available for comment.

Source: IOL

The fact that the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry could not be reached may imply one of two things. They were really not available for comment, or they don’t really have the means to do much about the situation other than increase the price of water and hope people start using less.

By reusing your greywater for irrigation and fitting a Multi-flush to your toilet the average household can save up to 50% on their water. Investing in these tecnologies won’t even require a lifestyle change.

It should be noted that even with the accumulated rainfall being higher than the norm, the two bigest  dams that supply Cape town are still under the 80% mark. This is the typical tell-tail signs of water restrictions over summer.

Source: DWA

Dams supplying water to the City of Cape Town are at their lowest in 4 years.

Even with a slightly higher than normal rainfall in the Western Cape over the month of May our dam levels are still falling. The months of May, June and July have historically been the highest rainfall months for the region. From this chart it can be seen that it would take much more than just normal rainfall to boost the levels of our dams.

Should these dam not fill during June, July and possibly August the City of Cape Town will need to look at measures to conserve water.

Below are the updated dam levels in the Western Cape. The two figures are from the week of May 2 2011 and May 9 2011. It is of interest to note that many of the dam levels continued to drop even with the rain the area experienced over the two weeks.

Should these dam levels continue to drop as expected in spite of winter rain, the Western Cape and Cape Town will be bound to install strict water saving measures. These typically include water restrictions however depending on the expected severity, water outages can be expected.

This stark projection was made by water authorities this week, as they worked to launch one of the most ambitious water-saving campaigns in the country’s history.

The Department of Water Affairs has disclosed that the western part of the Western Cape is in a “severely dry” period – an official term – as rainfall figures for the past year make it the sixth-driest since 1922, the year water scientists started recording rainfall figures.

From February last year to January this year, Cape Town had 627mm of rain, compared to an annual average of 895mm since 1922.

Provincial Water Affairs Department head Rashid Khan said the storage level at dams in the province stood at 57.29 percent on Wednesday, and at about 66 percent in the western region of the Western Cape.

“That’s a satisfactory position to be in – especially considering that we did not have a very wet winter last year,” Khan said.

But he warned that Cape Town’s water supply was still vulnerable because it was almost entirely reliant upon rainfall. A drought, such as experienced recently in the Southern Cape, could have dire consequences.

Khan said the water in the storage dams could last around two years. But a sustained period of drought would effect what he called “double jeopardy”.

“The less rainfall you have, means fewer cloudy days and a higher number of sunny days, so therefore higher evaporation.

“Also, during such a time, private farms have less water in their private dams, so they ask the state to release more water for them, which brings down the storage further.”

It was because of this almost sole reliance upon rain for water that Khan announced that the Western Cape would be looking for “large interventions”. This would be two-pronged: to educate the public and to build new infrastructure.

This month, a high-powered water-saving campaign kicks off as government ministers from around the African continent converge on the Cape Town International Convention Centre for discussions on how to save water.

The department’s three aims were:

l To provide access to water for everyone.

l To protect our water resources.

l For everyone to not “waste a drop”, and to increase water-usage efficiency.

Physical “interventions” include using ground water, recycled water and desalinated water, said Khan.

“The biggest dam in the world is the sea – desalination offers a far higher assurance of supply,” he said.

A new plant is being built at Lambert’s Bay, and is due to be complete in about six months.

Khan said the drilling of beach boreholes was about 60 percent completed and yield testing would start on Tuesday.

Civil engineering contractors had been appointed and have ordered 60 percent of the materials; an electrical bulk supply contractor would be appointed next week.

Laying of pipes will begin next month and construction of the plant itself is scheduled to start in June, and is expected to be complete a year from now.

The department announced that its entire budget for this financial year had been spent, some of it on successful projects in the Southern Cape.

“In George, half the water consumed domestically is now recycled water,” Khan said. “And in Beaufort West, almost a third of domestic supply – 1 million litres a day – is from recycled water.” Desalination was already taking place in Sedgefield, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay.

Asked to comment on the figures and the department’s warnings, Peter Johnston of UCT’s Climate Change Action Group said the report passed muster, from a climate expert’s perspective.

He warned, however, that desalinated water was very expensive to produce and to transport. “Recycled water is different – this is a much better route as you can select the degree of purification according to your needs.”

Source: Cape Argus

Cities at risk  of water restictions and water outages, like Durban, Cape Town and many more, are encouraged to harvest rainwater and recycling greywater. It is essential that water conservation practices become the norm as cities like these battle against climate change.

Durban could face water restrictions as early as next year. This is the warming from eThekwini municipality water department head Neil Macleod, who said last week that recent good rains are the only reason restrictions have been avoided so far this year.

“The total rainfall for last year, for this region, was the fourth lowest on record. The dams at the beginning of this year were on average 20 percent lower than at the start of 2010. We typically have a series of wetter years followed by a series of dryer years. The wet years have continued for an extended period and have protected us for the statistical possibility of restrictions.

“If we’d had normal rainfall over the past three years, we would almost certainly be in the middle of water restrictions right now,” he said.

And the situation is likely to get worse. “For 2011, I do not see restrictions being introduced. But 2012 could be a different story. We are nearing the end of the summer rains and if we have a dry winter comparable to last year, then water restrictions in 2012 are almost inevitable,” he said.

Macleod’s comments come just two weeks after Professor Mike Muller, former Department of Water Affairs director-general and now commissioner of the government’s National Planning Commission, warned that South Africa will face a water crisis within the next decade.

He singled out the eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) and Joburg metros as the municipalities likely to first feel the shortages.

Muller told the Sunday Tribune yesterday that it is vital for cities to plan to ensure they avoided water crises.

“We need to plan and do the right things at the right time. Water is difficult because you don’t know exactly how much you have. You’re working on estimates of how much rain will fall, but it might not be the same as what you’ve estimated.

“We need to ensure not only that we have enough water now, but that we have enough if there is a drought. If that happens, we need to know we have plans in place. The national Water Affairs department has plans for all major cities, but often they are not implemented in time.

Every city needs to think about what it needs to do and whether it is doing it,” he said.

Muller said he was impressed with the efforts of Macleod’s department to reduce water losses and ensure available water was being used effectively. “Every city, when it plans, needs to look beyond building dams. They need to conserve and better use the water they’ve got,” he said.

Macleod said: “We are at a point where our dams are unable to sustain the current demand over an extended period and the risk of failure is one in 15 years – that means water rationing every 15 years, statistically.”

Adding to the problem in Durban is the amount of water lost or stolen, with the recent draft budget report for the 2011/12 financial year stating that 35 percent of the city’s water is lost or stolen through illegal connections.

Macleod said measures were in place to reduce this figure, including replacing ageing pipes and managing water pipe pressure.

But Macleod said other measures need to be considered, including building the Spring Grove Dam in the KZN Midlands and building a dam in the Umkomazi River.

Spring Grove should have been storing water five years ago, he said, “but construction work has not even started” depite an ever-growing demand for water. Macleod said even if Spring Grove was built there would still be a need for more capacity.

The other option would be to dam the Umkomazi River.

“The most recent estimate I saw put the final cost at close to R20 billion. Environmentally, the proposed site is also in a rather sensitive area.

“Continuing with traditional dam building is becoming unaffordable from both economic and environmental perspectives,” he said.

Given this, other more innovative measures are needed, including desalination of seawater and recycling water. Recycling is cheaper but has other implications.

“People don’t like the idea or want to drink recycled sewage. It has a ‘yuck’ factor. This is despite the fact that most of our water comes from heavily polluted waters, but it is the thought of recycled sewage that disturbs people. Durban’s water, for example, has Pietermaritzburg’s sewage in it. Recycling is more an emotional thing, and that’s the really big negative we’re facing,” Macleod said.

A desalination plant would cost about the same to build as a recycling plant – about R1.6bn to R2bn.

“Recycling is cheaper because the amount of impurities, and this might be surprising, are higher in seawater than sewage, making it easier to treat than seawater. Sewage plants would be inland, while the desalination plant is at sea level, so the amount you spend on pumping the treated water is less. While the capital costs are about the same, the operation costs do differ,” he said, adding they would be run by a private company, probably foreign, because of the specialist nature of the work.

Both options are being researched, but Macleod said a decision was needed urgently.

“Whatever we build, it has to be built by 2013 or 2014. We need it really soon,” he said.

Macleod encouraged ratepayers to report water theft or leaks so they can be dealt with quickly. The toll-free number is 080 131 3013.

It matters not a jot as to whether the sluice gates were opened too early or too late.  The real reasons as to why we have floods that do so much damage is the dams themselves.

Dam building.  During years of lower than average and average rainfall a period that lasts up to thirty years, a swollen river gives no warning not to build on a flood plain. Rainfall of perhaps a ten year flood may very well be handled by the flood control mechanisms of those dams and are able to handle the rise, and allow water to be let out in a controlled way. When one gets as has happened this year a flood that happens say every 30 years, the dam only makes things worse. In other words the damn makes no difference to the flood and even makes it worse.  What has happened is that the ability of the dam to control small floods has drawn cash strapped municipalities to allow development and allow people to build on the flood plain.  The lesson of course is:  Don’t build on a flood plain.  The dam built to control floods will not work.

The second thing in the same article was that Mr Tau said was he predicted that the floods of up north would spread to Cape Town in June and July this year.  Very interesting Mr Tau, are you a climatologist?  Perhaps you are not one of those not as the possibility of June and July floods was rebuffed in the Argus of the same day by various expert climatologists.

It is not easy to read the future, but Capetonians are a clever lot and they know that the next few years will be drought years.

Please Mr Tau would you pay attention address the following emergencies which are incrementally entering our disaster arena.

1.       AMD      (Acid Mine drainage)   the toxic water in the rivers and ground water in the Gauteng region is spreading east and west.  This water contains Radon Iridium and Uranium, three radioactive toxic substances, has a pH of 2.8 (strong enough to strip you skin off your body) and heavy metals etc.

2.       Stop any fracking process which may be undertaken by Shell or any other company for that matter in the Karoo.  This process seems not to need an EIA (Environmental impact assessment), but they are relying solely on an EMP (Environmental management plan) which they seem to be able to put together in three weeks.  As we all know, an EIA should take around five years to put together.  This process will pollute the groundwater as well as surface water in our land.

3.       The possibility of drought in the Western Cape will make Beaufort West’s problems look like a country tea party, if the area gets a year of no rain like has happened there.

Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor

Founder of Water Rhapsody and winner of a WWF Green Trust Award

Opposition party members also raised concerns about the scarcity of skills and the availability of engineers in the water sector.

Source: Eyewitness news

To secure your own emergency water supply start harvesting rainwater. Not only will you be collecting free rainwater but this will take you off the municipal water grip for several months a year.